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But, Gentlemen, let us try to be serious, and seriously give me leave to ask you, on what grounds does he solicit your verdict? Is it for the loss of his profession? Does he deserve compensation if he abandoned it for such a purpose-if he deserted at once his duty and his country to trepan the weakness of a wealthy dotard? But did he (base as the pretence is), did he do so? Is there nothing to cast any suspicion on the pretext? nothing in the aspect of public affairs? in the universal peace? in the uncertainty of being put in commission? in the downright impossibility of advancement? Nothing to make you suspect that he imputes as a contrivance, what was the manifest result of an accidental contingency? Does he claim on the ground of sacrificed affection? Oh, Gentlemen, only fancy what he has lost-if it were but the blessed raptures of the bridal night! Do not suppose I am going to describe it; I shall leave it to the Learned Counsel he has selected to compose his epithalamium. I shall not exhibit the venerable trembler at once a relic and a relict; with a grace for every year and a Cupid in every wrinkle -affecting to shrink from the flame of his impatience, and fanning it with the ambrosial sigh of sixty-five!! I cannot paint the fierce meridian transports of the honeymoon, gradually melting into a more chastened and permanent affectionevery nine months adding a link to the chain of their delicate embraces, until, too soon, Death's broadside lays the Lieutenant low, consoling, however, his patriarchal charmer, (old enough at the

time to be the last wife of Methusalem) with a fifty pound annuity, being the balance of his glory against His Majesty's Ship, the Hydra!!

Give me leave to ask you, Is this one of the cases, to meet which, this very rare and delicate action was intended? Is this a case where a reciprocity of circumstances, of affection, or of years, throw even a shade of rationality over the contract? Do not imagine I mean to insinuate, that under no circumstances ought such a proceeding to be adopted. Do not imagine, though I say this action belongs more naturally to a female, its adoption can never be justified by one of the other sex. Without any great violence to my imagination, I can suppose a man in the very spring of life, when his sensibilities are most acute, and his passions most ardent, attaching himself to some object, young, lovely, talented, and accomplished, concentrating, as he thought, every charm of personal perfection, and in whom those charms were only heightened by the modesty that veiled them; perhaps his preference was encouraged; his affection returned; his very sigh echoed until he was conscious of his existence but by the soul-creating sympathy-until the world seemed but the residence of his love, and that love the principle that gave it animation-until, before the smile of her affection, the whole spectral train of sorrow vanished, and this world of wo, with all its cares and miseries and crimes, brightened as by enchantment into anticipated paradise!! It might happen that this divine affection might be crushed, and that hea

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venly vision wither into air at the hell-engendered pestilence of parental avarice, leaving youth and health, and worth and happiness, a sacrifice to its unnatural and mercenary caprices. Far am I from saying, that such a case would not call for expiation, particularly where the punishment fell upon the very vice in which the ruin had originated. Yet even there perhaps an honourable mind would rather despise the mean, unmerited desertion. Oh, I am sure a sensitive mind would rather droop uncomplaining into the grave, than solicit the mockery of a worldly compensation! But in the case before you, is there the slightest ground for supposing any affection? Do you believe, if any accident bereft the Defendant of her, fortune, that her persecutor would be likely to retain his constancy? Do you believe that the marriage thus sought to be enforced, was one likely to promote morality and virtue? Do you believe that those delicious fruits by which the struggles of social life are sweetened, and the anxieties of parental care alleviated, were ever once anticipated? Do you think that such an union could exhibit those reciprocities of love and endearments by which this tender rite should be consecrated and recommended? Do you not rather believe that it originated in avarice-that it was promoted by conspiracy -and that it would not perhaps have lingered through some months of crime, and then terminated in an heartless and disgusting abandonment?

Gentlemen, these are the questions which you will discuss in your Jury-room. I am not afraid of

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your decision. Remember I ask you for no mitigation of damages. Nothing less than your verdict will satisfy me. By that verdict you will sustain the dignity of your sex-by that verdict you will uphold the honour of the national character-by that verdict you will assure, not only the immense multitude of both sexes that thus so unusually crowds around you, but the whole rising generation of your country, That MARRIAGE CAN

NEVER BE ATTENDED WITH HONOUR OR BLESSED WITH HAPPINESS, IF IT HAS NOT ITS ORIGIN IN MUTUAL AF

FECTION. I surrender with confidence my case to your decision.

[The Damages were laid at 5000l., and the Plaintiff's Counsel were, in the end, contented to withdraw a Juror, and let him pay his own Costs.]

A

CHARACTER

OF

NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE,

DOWN TO THE PERIOD OF

HIS EXILE TO ELBA.

HE IS FALLEN!

We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted.

Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he -sat upon the throne, a sceptered hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his own originality.

A mind bold, independent, and decisive-a will, despotic in its dictates-an energy that distanced expedition, and a conscience pliable to every touch of interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary character-the most extra

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