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the requisition. I do not inquire into the comparative justness of the reasoning, but does not every one feel that there appears some meanness in forcing a female into an alliance? Is it not almost saying, "I will expose to public shame the credulity on which I practised, or you must pay to me in moneys numbered, the profits of that heartless speculation; I have gambled with your affections, I have secured your bond, I will extort the penalty either from your purse or your reputation!" I put a case to you where the circumstances are reciprocal, where age, fortune, situation, are the same, where there is no disparity of years to make the supposition ludicrous, where there is no disparity of fortune to render it suspicious. Let us see whether the present action can be so palliated, or whether it does not exhibit a picture of fraud and avarice, and meanness and hypocrisy, so laughable, that it is almost impossible to criticise it, and yet so debasing, that human pride almost forbids its ridicule.

It has been left to me to defend my unfortunate old client from the double battery of Love and of Law, which at the age of sixty-five has so unexpectedly opened on her. Oh, Gentlemen, how vain-glorious is the boast of beauty! How misapprehended have been the charms of youth, if years and wrinkles can thus despoil their conquests, and depopulate the navy of its prowess, and beguile the bar of its eloquence! How mistaken were all the amatory poets from Anacreon downwards, who preferred the bloom of the rose and the thrill of

the nightingale, to the saffron hide and dulcet treble of sixty-five! Even our own sweet bard has had the folly to declare, that

"He once had heard tell of an amorous youth

Who was caught in his grandmother's bed;
But owns he had ne'er such a liquorish tooth,
As to wish to be there in his stead."

Royal wisdom has said, that we live in a "NEW ERA." The reign of old women has commenced, and if Johanna Southcote converts England to her creed, why should not Ireland, less pious perhaps, but at least equally passionate, kneel before the shrine of the irresistible WIDOW WILKINS. It appears, Gentlemen, to have been her happy fate to have subdued particularly the death-dealing professions. Indeed, in the love-episodes of the heathen mythology, Mars and Venus were considered as inseparable. I know not whether any of you have ever seen a very beautiful print representing the fatal glory of Quebec, and the last moments of its immortal conqueror-if so, you must have observed the figure of the Staff physician, in whose arms the hero is expiring-that identical personage, my Lord, was the happy swain, who, forty or fifty years ago, received the reward of his valour and his skill in the virgin hand of my venerable client! The Doctor lived something more than a century, during a great part of which Mrs. Wilkins was his companion-alas, Gentlemen, long as he lived, he lived not long enough to behold her beauty"That beauty, like the Aloe flower,

But bloom'd and blossom'd at fourscore."

He was, however, so far fascinated as to bequeath to her the legacies of his patients, when he found he was predoomed to follow them. To this circumstance, very far be it from me to hint, that Mrs. W. is indebted for any of her attractions. Rich, however, she undoubtedly was, and rich she would still as undoubtedly have continued, had it not been for her intercourse with the family of the Plaintiff. I do not impute it as a crime to them that they happened to be necessitous, but I do impute it as both criminal and ungrateful, that after having lived on the generosity of their friend, after having literally exhausted her most prodigal liberality, they should drag her infirmities before the public gaze, vainly supposing that they could hide their own contemptible avarice in the more prominent exposure of her melancholy dotage. The father of the Plaintiff, it cannot be unknown to you, was for many years in the most indigent situation. Perhaps it is not a matter of concealment either, that he found in Mrs. Wilkins a generous benefactress. She assisted and supported him, until at last his increasing necessities reduced him to take refuge in an act of insolvency. During their intimacy, frequent allusion was made to a son whom Mrs. Wilkins had never seen since he was a child, and who had risen to a lieutenancy in the navy, under the patronage of their relative, Sir BENJAMIN BLOOMFIELD. In a parent's panegyric, the gallant lieutenant was of course all that even hope could picture. Young, gay, heroic, and disinterested, the pride of the navy, the prop of the country,

independent as the gale that wafted, and bounteous as the wave that bore him. I am afraid that it is rather an anti-climax to tell you after this, that he is the present Plaintiff. The eloquence of Mrs. Blake was not exclusively confined to her encomiums on the lieutenant. She diverged at times into an episode on the matrimonial felicities, painted the joy of passion and delights of love, and obscurely hinted that Hymen, with his torch, had an exact personification in her son Peter bearing a match-light in His Majesty's ship the Hydra!While these contrivances were practising on Mrs. Wilkins, a bye-plot was got up on board the Hydra, and Mr. Blake returned to his mourning country, influenced, as he says, by his partiality for the Defendant, but in reality compelled by ill health and disappointments, added, perhaps, to his mother's very absurd and avaricious speculations. What a loss the navy had of him, and what a loss he had of the navy! Alas, Gentlemen, he could not resist his affection for a female he never saw. Almighty love eclipsed the glories of ambition-Trafalgar and St. Vincent flitted from his memory-he gave up all for woman, as Mark Antony did before him, and, like the Cupid in Hudibras, he

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Oh, Gentlemen, only imagine him on the lakes: of North America! Alike to him the varieties of season or the vicissitudes of warfare. One sovereign image monopolizes his sensibilities. Does the storm rage? the Widow Wilkins outsighs the whirlwind. Is the Ocean calm? its mirror shows him the lovely Widow Wilkins. Is the battle won? he thins his laurel that the Widow Wilkins may interweave her myrtles. Does the broaside thunder? he invokes the Widow Wilkins!

"A sweet little Cherub she sits up aloft

To keep watch for the life of poor Peter!"

-Alas, how much he is to be pitied! How amply he should be recompensed! Who but must mourn his sublime, disinterested, sweet-souled patriotism! Who but must sympathize with his pure, ardent, generous affection!-affection too confiding to require an interview!-affection too warm to wait even for an introduction! Indeed, his Amanda herself seemed to think his love was most desirable at a distance, for at the very first visit after his return he was refused admittance. His captivating charmer was then sick and nurse-tended at her brother's house, after a winter's confinement, reflecting, most likely, rather on her funeral than her wedding. Mrs. Blake's avarice instantly took the alarm, and she wrote the letter, which I shall now proceed to read to you.

[Mr. VANDELEUR.-My Lord, unwilling as I am to interrupt a statement which seems to create so universal a sensation, still I hope Your Lordship

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