to keep the property clear of depredation, | and frequently to the depredators themselves as a compromise. Spelman attributes the term black to the circumstance of the impost being paid in copper money, and he is followed by Ducange. Its origin has been sought in the German plagen to trouble, the root of which is represented by the English word plague. Dr. Jamieson, however, in his Etymological Dictionary,' thinks the word was intended simply to designate the moral hue of the transaction. Pennant absurdly supposes that the word mail is a corruption of "meal," in which he presumes the tax to have been paid. (Tour in Scotland, ii. 404.) The word mail, however, was used in Scotland to express every description of periodical payment, and it is still a technical term in the law of landlord and tenant. The expression has been used in English legislation in reference to the borders, as in the 43 Eliz. c. 13, § 2: "And whereas now of late time there have been many incursions, roads, robberies, and burning and spoiling of towns, villages, and houses within the said counties, that divers of her majesty's loving subjects within the said counties, and the inhabitants of divers towns there, have been forced to pay a certain rate of money, corn, cattle, or other consideration, commonly there called by the name of black-mail, unto divers and sundry inhabiting upon or near the borders, being men of name, and friended and allied with divers in those parts who are commonly known to be great robbers and spoil-takers." In 1567 an act of the Scottish parliament (c. 21) was passed for its suppression in the shires of Selkirk, Roxburgh, Lanark, Dumfries, and Edinburgh. In later times, and especially during the eighteenth century, at about the middle of which it was extinguished, it prevailed solely in the parts of the northern counties which border on the Highlands. The fruitful shire of Murray, separated from the other cultivated counties of Scotland, and in a great measure bordered by Highland districts, was peculiarly subject to the ravages from which this tax afforded a protection, and was called "Moray land, where every gentleman may take his prey," as being a place where there was little chance of a plunderer stumbling on the property of a brother marauder, and infringing an old Scottish proverb, that "corbies dinna peik out corbies' eyne." In the old practice of the law black-mail seems to have been used to designate every description of illegal extortion. Thus in 1530 Adam Scott, of Tuschelau, is "convicted of art and part of theftuously taking black mail from the time of his entry within the castle of Edinburgh in ward, from John Browne, in Hoprow." He was beheaded. (Pitcairn's Crim. Tr. i. 145.*) In 1550 James Gulane and John Gray, messengers-at-arms, or officers of the law, are accused of apprehending a criminal, and taking black-mail from him for his liberty (Ib. 356*). Subsequently, and in the vicinity of the Highlands, the practice seems to have been to a certain extent countenanced by the law, as providing to the inhabitants that security from plunder and outrage which the government could not ensure to them. Thus in Sir John Sinclair's 'Statistical Account of Scotland' (Parish of Strathblane, xviii. 582), there is an order of the justices of peace of Stirlingshire to enforce payment of certain stipulated sums which the inhabitants were to pay to a neighbouring proprietor for the protection of "their hous goods and geir." Those only who chose to resign the protection afforded were exempted from the corresponding payment. In the same work (Parish of Killearn, xvi. 124) there is a contract, so late as the year 1741, executed with all the formalities of law, between James Graham, of Glengyle, on the one part, "and the gentlemen, heritors, and tenants within the shires of Perth, Stirling, and Dunbarton, who are hereto subscribing, on the other part,” in which Graham engages to protect them for a mail of 4 per cent. on their valued rents, which it appears he afterwards reduced to 3 per cent. He engages that he "shall keep the lands subscribed for, and annexed to the respective subscriptions, skaithless of any loss to be sustained by the heritors, tenants, or inhabitants thereof, through the stealing and away-taking of their cattle, horses, or sheep, and that for the space of seven years complete, from and after the term of Whit-Sunday next to come; and for that effect, either to return the cattle so stolen from time to time, or otherwayes within six months after the theft committed, to make payment to the persons from whom they were stolen, of their true value, to be ascertained by the oaths of the owners, before any judge ordinary [sheriff]; providing always that intimation be made to the said James Graham, at his house in Correilet, or where he shall happen to reside for the time, of the number and marks of the cattle, sheep, or horses stolen, and that within forty-eight hours from the time that the proprietors thereof shall be able to prove by habile witnesses, or their own or their herd's oaths, that the cattle amissing were seen upon their usual pasture within the space of forty-eight hours previous to the intimation." Within a very few years after the practice had been thus systematized, it was swept away by the proceedings following on the rebellion of 1745. Captain Burt, whose amusing Letters from a gentleman in the north of Scotland to his friend in London,' though bearing date in 1754, refer to a period immediately before the rebellion. Troops were stationed in the district to which he refers, the marauders were kept in check, and he describes the isolated acts of depredation then committed as requiring great caution and cunning, the cattle taken in the west being exchanged within the Highlands for those which might be captured towards the east, so that officers of the law, or others in search of them, might have to traverse a vast district of mountain-land before the stolen cattle they might be in search of could be identified (ii. p. 208, et seq.). In the Statistical Account already referred to there are many allusions to black-mail and the state of society co-existent with it, which seem to be founded on personal recollection. In the account of the parish of Fortingal in Perthshire there occurs the following sketch:-" Before the year 1745 Ranoch was in an uncivilized, barbarous state, under no check or restraint of laws. As an evidence of this, one of the principal proprietors never could be compelled to pay his debts. Two mes sengers were sent from Perth to give him a charge of horning. He ordered a dozen of his retainers to bind them across two hand-barrows, and carry them in this state to the bridge of Cainachan, at nine miles distance. His property in particular was a nest of thieves. They laid the whole country, from Stirling to Coupar of Angus, under contribution, obliging the inhabitants to pay them black-meal, as it is called, to save their property from being plundered. This was the centre of this kind of traffic. In the months of September and October they gathered to the number of about 300, built temporary huts, drank whiskey all the time, settled accounts for stolen cattle, and received balances. Every man then bore arms. It would have required a regiment to have brought a thief from that country." BLACK ROD, USHER OF THE, is an officer of the House of Lords. He is styled the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, and is appointed by letterspatent from the crown. His deputy is styled the yeoman usher. They are the official messengers of the Lords, and either the gentleman or yeoman usher summons the Commons to the House of Lords when the royal assent is given to bills. "He executes orders for the commitment of parties guilty of breaches of privilege and contempt, and assists at the introduction of peers and other ceremonies." (May's Parliament, p. 156.) BLA'SPHEMY (in Greek Bλaopnula, blasphemia), a crime which is punished by the laws of most civilized nations, and which has been regarded of such enormity in many nations as to be punished with death. The word is Greek, but it has found its way into the English and several other modern languages, owing, it is supposed, to the want of native terms to express with precision and brevity the idea of which it is the representative. It is, properly speaking, an ecclesiastical term, most of which are Greek, as the term ecclesiastical itself, and the terms baptism, bible, and bishop. This has arisen out of the scriptures of the New Testament having been written in Greek, and those of the Old having in remote times been far better known in the Greek translation than in the original Hebrew. Blasphemy is a compound word, of | account of the act of blasphemy being which the second part (phe-m) signifies to noticed as a crime, and marked by a lespeak: the origin of the first part (blas) gislator for punishment:" And the son is not so certain; it is derived from of an Israelitish woman, whose father was Вλánтw (blapto), to hurt or strike, accord- an Egyptian, went out among the children ing to some. Etymologically therefore of Israel, and this son of the Israelitish it denotes speaking so as to hurt; the woman and a man of Israel strove tousing to a person's face reproachful and gether in the camp: and the Israelitish insulting expressions. But others derive woman's son blasphemed the name of the the first part of the compound from Bλág. Lord, and cursed. And they brought (Passow's Schneider.) In this general him unto Moses, and they put him in way it is used by Greek writers, and ward, that the mind of the Lord might be even in the New Testament; as in 1 Tim. showed them. And the Lord spake unto vi. 4, "Whereof cometh envy, strife, rail- Moses saying, Bring forth him that hath ings, evil surmisings," where the word cursed without the camp, and let all that rendered "railings" is in the original heard him lay their hands upon his head, "blasphemies." In Eph. iv. 31, "Let all and let all the congregation stone him. bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and And thou shalt speak unto the children clamour, and evil-speaking be put away of Israel saying, Whosoever curseth his from you," where "evil-speaking" repre- God shall bear his sin, and he that blassents the "blasphemy" of the original. In phemeth the name of the Lord he shall a similar passage, Col. iii. 8, the transla- surely be put to death, and all the contors have retained the "blasphemy" of gregation shall certainly stone him; as the original, though what is meant is pro- well the stranger, as he that is born in the bably no more than ordinary insulting or land, when he blasphemeth the name of reproachful speech. Thus also in Mark the Lord, shall be put to death." It is vii. 22, our Saviour himself, in enumera- said that the Hebrew commentators on ting various evil dispositions or practices, the law have some difficulty in defining mentions "an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, exactly what is to be considered as infoolishness," not meaning, as it seems, cluded within the scope of the term "blasmore than the ordinary case of insulting pheme" in this passage. But it seems speech. from the text to be evidently that loud and vehement reproach, the result of violent and uncontrolled passion, which not unfrequently is vented not only against a fellow-mortal who offends, but at the same time against the majesty and sovereignty of God. Blasphemy in this sense, however it is to be avoided as immoral and mischievous, is not marked as crime; and its suppression is left to the ordinary influence of morals and religion, and not provided for by law. In this sense indeed the word can hardly be said to be naturalized among us, though it may occasionally be found in the poets, and in those prosewriters who exercise an inordinate curiosity in the selection of their terms. But besides being used to denote insulting and opprobrious speech in general, it was used to denote speech of that kind of a peculiar nature, namely, when the object against which it was directed was a person esteemed sacred, but especially when against God. The word was used by the LXX. to represent the Sp of the original Hebrew, when translating the passage of the Jewish law which we find in Leviticus xxiv. 10-16; this is the first authentic Common sense, applying itself to the text which we have quoted, would at once declare that this, and this only, constituted the crime against which, in the Mosaic code, the punishment of death was denounced. But among the later Jews, other things were brought within the compass of this law; and it was laid hold of as a means of opposing the influence of the teaching of Jesus Christ, and of giving the form of law to the persecution of himself and his followers. sacred things or places was construed Thus to speak evilly or reproachfully of into blasphemy. The charge against Stephen was that he "ceased not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law" (Acts vi. 13); and he was punished by stoning, the peculiar mode of putting to death prescribed, as we have seen, by the Jewish law for blasphemy. Our Lord himself was put to death as one convicted of this crime: "Again the high-priest asked and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the son of the blessed? And Jesus said, I am; and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high-priest rent his clothes and said, What need we any further witnesses? Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye? And they all condemned him to be guilty of death" (Mark xiv. 61-64). It was manifest that there was here nothing of violence or passion, nothing of any evil intention essential to constitute such a crime, nothing, indeed, but the declaration of that divine mission on which he had come into the world, and of which his miracles were intended to be the proof. There are some instances of the use of the term in the New Testament, in which it is not easy to say whether the word is used in its ordinary sense of hurtful, injurious, and insulting speech, or in the restricted, and what may be called the forensic sense. Thus when it is said of Christ or his apostles that they were blasphemed, it is doubtful whether the writers intended to speak of the act as one of more than ordinary reviling, or to charge the parties with being guilty of the offence of speaking insultingly and reproachfully to persons invested with a character of more than ordinary sacredness: and even in the passage about the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, it appears most probable from the context that blasphemy is there used in the sense of ordinary reviling, though the object against which it was directed gave to such reviling the character of unusual atrocity. Among the canonists, the definition of blasphemy is made to include the denying of God, or the asserting of anything to be God which is not God,-anything, indeed, in the words of the Summa Angelica," voce "Blasfemia," which implies quandam derogationem excellentis bonitatis alicujus et præcipue divinæ;" and this extended application of the term has 26 been received in most Christian countries, and punishments have been affixed to the offence. In our own country, by the common law, open blasphemy was punishable by fine and imprisonment, or other infamous corporal punishment. The kind of blasphemy which was thus cognizable is described by Blackstone to be "denying the being or providence of God, contumelious reproaches of our Saviour Christ, profane scoffing at the Holy Scripture, or exposing it to contempt and ridicule" (Commentaries, b. iv. c. iv.). All these heads, except the first, seem to spring immediately from the original sense of the word blasphemy, as they are that hurtful and insulting speech which the word denotes. And we suspect that whenever the common law was called into operation to punish persons guilty of the first of these forms of blasphemy, it was only when the denial was accompanied with opprobrious words or gestures, which seem to be essential to complete the true crime of blasphemy. Errors in opinion, even on points which are of the very essence of religion, were referred in England in early times to the ecclesiastics, as falling under the denomination of heretical opinions, to be dealt with by them as other heresies were. There is nothing in the statute-book under the word blasphemy till we come to the reign of King William III. In that reign an act was passed, the title of which is "An Act for the more effectual suppressing of blasphemy and profaneness." We believe that the statute-book of no other nation can show such an extension and comprehension as is given in this statute to the word blasphemy, unless, indeed, a statute of the Scottish parliament, which was passed not long before, viz. the Act of 1695, c. 11. The only other Scottish act is of Charles the Second's reign. The primitive and real meaning of blasphemy, and we may add of profaneness also, was entirely lost sight of, and the act was directed to the restraint of all free investigation of positions respecting things esteemed sacred. The more proper title would have been, "An Act to prevent the investigation of the grounds of belief in Divine revelation, and the nature of the things revealed;" for that such is its object is apparent throughout the whole of it: "Whereas many persons have of late years openly avowed and published many blasphemous and infamous opinions contrary to the doctrines and principles of the Christian religion, greatly tending to the dishonour of Almighty God, and may prove destructive to the peace and welfare of this kingdom; wherefore for the more effectual suppressing of the said detestable crimes, be it enacted, that if any person or persons having been educated in, or at any time having made profession of, the Christian religion within this realm, shall, by writing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking, deny any one of the persons of the Holy Trinity to be God, or shall assert or maintain that there are more gods than one, or shall deny the Christian religion to be true, or the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be of divine authority," &c. These are the whole of the offences comprised in this act. The penalties are severe : disqualifications; incapacity to act as executor or guardian, or to receive legacies; three years' imprisonment. (Stat. 9 Will. III. c. 35.) If, however, within four months after the first conviction, the offender will renounce his error in open court, he is for that time discharged from all disabilities. The writings alluded to in the preamble were not, in any proper sense of the term, blasphemous. They were, for the most part, we believe universally, the work of sober-minded and well-disposed men, who, however mistaken they might be, were yet in the pursuit of truth, and seeking it in a direction in which it is especially of importance to mankind to find it. To prevent such inquiries by laws such as these is most unwise. There can be no solid conviction where there can be no inquiry. In a state where laws like this are acted on (happily, in this country, it is become a dead letter), Christianity can never have the seat she ought to have, not only in the affections, but in the rational and sober convictions of mankind. What we mean however at present to urge is, that the title of blasphemy in this statute is a palpable misnomer. The delivery either from the pulpit or the press of the results of reflection and inquiry applied to the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, or of any particular book included within that term, to the claim of Christianity to be a divine institution, or to the claim of the doctrine of the Trinity to be received as part of Christianity, can never be regarded as blasphemy or profaneness, however in particular instances it may sometimes be accompanied by expressions which may bring the individual using them within the scope of a charge of blasphemy. Blackstone, in his chapter on offences against God and religion, does not treat of this statute in the section headed Blasphemy, but under Apostasy. Indeed, blasphemy, as Blackstone defines it, and profaneness, are still offences at common law, and may be prosecuted as such; for the statute of William is merely cumulative, as it is termed, and the common law offence, the prosecution and the punishment, remain as they were before the statute. (R. v. Carlile, 3 B and A. 161.) We are surprised that such a statute could have been passed so near our own time; still more that such a title should have been prefixed to it. As to its main provision it remains in force. But in 1813, the number of persons who openly avowed that they did not consider the doctrine of the Trinity as possessed of sufficient support from the words of Scripture, when truly interpreted, to deserve assent, having greatly increased, and large congregations of them being found in most of the principal towns, several clergymen also of undoubted respectability, learning, and piety having seceded from the church on the ground that this doctrine as professed in the church was without sufficient authority, a bill was introduced into parliament to relieve such persons from the operation of this statute, and it passed without opposition. This act, which is commonly called Mr. Smith's Act, after the name of the late Mr. William Smith, then member for the city of Norwich, by whom it was introduced, is stat. 53 George III. c. 160. The legal crime of blasphemy and profaneness is made by this statute of King William something entirely different from the crime when considered with reference to religion or morals. Few persons will |