Foote and others.

Revised with a Preface by the Lord Chief Justice of England.

London, Stevens and Sons.] Sir James Stephen also, after referring to the writ _De Heretico Comburendo_, under which heresy and blasphemy were punishable by burning alive, and which was abolished in 1677, without abridging the jurisdiction of Ecclesiastical Courts "in cases of atheism, blasphemy, heresie, or schism, and other damnable doctrines and opinions," adds that "In this state of things, the Court of Queen's Bench took upon itself some of the functions of the old Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, and treated as misdemeanours at common law many things which those courts had formerly punished...
This was the origin of the modern law as to blasphemy and blasphemous libel." [Reference: _Blasphemy and Blasphemous Libel_.

By Sir James Stephen.

_Fortnightly Review_, March, 1884.] Less than ten years after the "glorious revolution" of 1688 there was passed a statute, known as the 9 and 10 William III., c.