"A Letter to Lord Ellenborough" is a pamphlet written in 1812 by Percy Bysshe Shelley in defence of Daniel Isaac Eaton.Sandy, Mark. "A Letter to Lord Ellenborough". The Literary Encyclopedia. 21 March 2002
accessed 24 December 2009.
/ref> Printed in Barnstaple, the essay is approximately 4,000 words in length.

Arguments advanced in the essay

In the essay, Shelley argues for concepts which were then quite radical, including complete freedom of the press, and a tolerance for all published opinion, even when false. The latter, he argued, would "ultimately be controverted by its own falsehood." The epigraph on the title page is by

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...

from ''The Annals'', Deorum Offensa, Diis curae. An offense to the gods is rectified by the gods. A speech by the

Marquess Wellesley A marquess (; french: marquis ), es, marqués, pt, marquês. is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman wi ...

from July 2 in the ''Globe'' is quoted. In the Advertisement, Shelley wrote that he had waited for four months for someone to attack the sentence but when none was forthcoming, he wrote the letter.

Origin of the title

Lord Ellenborough

The title arises from the name of the letter's recipient, who directed the jury that convicted Eaton. Eaton had been tried and found guilty of "blasphemous libel", for being an atheist. At the trial before

Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough, (16 November 1750 – 13 December 1818), was an English judge. After serving as a member of parliament and Attorney General, he became Lord Chief Justice. Early life Law was born at Great Salkeld, in Cum ...

, the Lord Chief Justice of England, what Mark Sandy of the

University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charte ...

has called a "prejudiced jury" convicted Eaton for printing part three of

Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...

's '' Age of Reason''.

The trial

Daniel Eaton was put on trial in May 1812. During the trial, in which he was accused of being an atheist, as well as the aforementioned "blasphemous libel." In defending himself, Eaton claimed that his beliefs were not atheistic, but

deist Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin '' deus'', meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation ...

ic. He attempted to argue that

scripture Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They differ from literature by being a compilation or discussion of beliefs, mythologies, ritual pra ...

was open to the type of critique that Paine had leveled in ''Age of Reason''. He based this view on his belief that the god of the Old Testament was "a revengeful and primitive deity", while the

Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

of the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

was "an exceedingly virtuous, good man, but nothing supernatural or divine." Despite the paucity of evidence, on 15 May 1812, the Ellenborough-led jury found Eaton guilty. His sentence was severe, including eighteen months in Newgate Prison and a monthly pillorying for the entire term of his sentence.

Publication history

The letter was republished as ''Shelley on Blasphemy: Being His Letter to Lord Ellenborough, Occasioned by the Sentence which He Passed on Mr. D. I. Eaton'' in 1883 in London by the Progressive Publishing Company. The letter was republished in ''A letter to Lord Ellenborough: Occasioned by the Sentence Which He Passed on Mr. D.I. Eaton as publisher of the third part of Paine's 'Age of Reason in 1894 in London by R. Forder.''A Letter to Lord Ellenborough'', 1894. Archive.
/ref>

References

Sources

*Butler, Marilyn. ''Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries: English Literature and its Background, 1760-1830''. Oxford University Press, 1982. *Cameron, Kenneth Neill. "Shelley vs. Southey: New Light on an Old Quarrel." ''PMLA'', Vol. 57, No. 2 (Jun., 1942), pp. 489–512. *Cameron, Kenneth Neill. "Shelley and the Reformers." ''ELH'', Vol. 12, No. 1 (March, 1945), pp. 62–85. *Clark, David Lee. "The Dates and Sources of Shelley's Metaphysical, Moral, and Religious Essays." The University of Texas Studies in English, Vol. 28, (1949), pp. 160–194. *Grimes, Kyle. "'Queen Mab', the Law of Libel, and the Forms of Shelley's Politics." ''The Journal of English and Germanic Philology'', Vol. 94, No. 1 (January, 1995), pp. 1–18. *Male, Roy R., Jr. "Young Shelley and the Ancient Moralists." ''Keats-Shelley Journal'', Vol. 5, (Winter, 1956), pp. 81–86. *Shelley, Percy Bysshe. ''Shelley on Blasphemy: Being his Letter to Lord Ellenborough, occasioned by the sentence which he passed on Mr. D. I. Eaton, as publisher of the third part of Paine's "Age of Reason"''. London: Progressive Publishing Company, 1883. *Sotheran, Charles. ''Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer''. Boston, MA: IndyPublish.com, 2006. First published in New York by C.P. Somerby, 1876. *White, Newman I. "Literature and the Law of Libel: Shelley and the Radicals of 1840-1842." ''Studies in Philology'', Vol. 22, No. 1 (January, 1925), pp. 34–47. *White, Newman I. "Shelley and the Active Radicals of the Early Nineteenth Century." ''South Atlantic Quarterly'', 29, 1930, pp. 246–261.

External links

''A Letter to Lord Ellenborough.'' London: R. Forder, 1894."A Letter to Lord Ellenborough." ''Selected Prose Works of Shelley''. London: Watts & Co., 1915.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Letter to Lord Ellenborough 1812 documents Works by Percy Bysshe Shelley Blasphemy Freedom of the press