censorship, and then tell me where is it to begin? Where is it to end? Who shall bound? Who shall preface it? By what hitherto undiscoverable standard, shall we regulate the shades between solemnity and levity? Will you permit this impudent espionage upon your households; upon the hallowed privacy of vour domestic hours; and for what purpose? Why, that the seducer and the adulterer may calculate the security of his cold. blooded libertinism!-that he may steal like an assassin upon your hours of relaxation, and convert perhaps your confidence into the instrument of your ruin! If this be once permitted as a ground of justification, we may bid farewell at once to all the delightful intercourse of social life. Spurning as I do at this odious system of organized distrust, suppose the admission made, that my client was careless, indiscreet, culpable, if they will, in his domestic regulations, is it therefore to be endured, that every abandoned burglar should seduce his wife, or violate his daughter? Is it to be endured, that Mr. Blake, of all men, should rely on such an infamous and convenient extenuation? He-his friend, his guest, his confidant, he who introduced a spotless sister to this attainted intimacy; shall he say, I associated with you hourly, I affected your familiarity for many years, I accompanied my domesticated minister of religion to your family; I almost naturalized the nearest female relative I had on earth, unsullied and unmarried as she was within your household: but-you fool -it was only to turn it into a brothel! Merciful God, will you endure him when he tells you thus, that he is on the watch to prowl upon the weakness of humanity, and audaciously solicits your charter for such libertinism?

I have heard it asserted also, that they mean to arraign the husband as a conspirator, because in the hour of confidence and misfortune he accepted a proffered pecuniary assistance from the man he thought his friend. It is true he did do so; but So, I will say, criminally careful was he of his interests that he gave him his bond, and made him enter up judgment on that bond, and made him issue an execution on that judgment, ready to be levied in a day, that, in the wreck of all, the friend of his bosom should be at least indemnified. It was my impression, indeed, that under a lease of this nature, amongst honourable men, so far from any unwarrantable privilege created, there was rather a peculiar delicacy incumbent on the donor. I should have thought so still

but for a frightful expression of one of the Counsel on the motion, by which they endeavoured not to trust a Dublin Jury with this issue. What, exclaimed they, in all the pride of their execrable instructions," poor plaintiff and rich defendant! Is there nothing in that?" No, if my client's shape does not belie his species, there is nothing in that. I braved the assertion as a calumny on human nature-I call on you, if such an allegation be repeated, to visit it with vindictive and overwhelming damages? I would appeal, not to this civilized assembly, but to a horde of savages, whether it is possible for the most inhuman monster thus to sacrifice to infamy, his character-his wife-his home-his children! In the name of possibility, I deny it; in the name of humanity, I denounce it; in the name of our common country, and our common nature, I inplore of the learned Counsel not to promulgate such a slander upon both-but I need not do so; if the seal of advocacy should induce them to the attempt, memory would array their unhappy homes before them-their little children would lisp its contradiction-their love-their hearts-their instinctive feelings as fathers and as husbands, would rebel within them, and wither up the horrid blasphemy upon their lips.

They will find it difficult to palliate such turpitude-I am sure I find it difficult to aggravate.-It is in itself a hyperbole of wickedness. Honour, innocence, religion, friendship-all that is sanctified or lovely, or endearing in creation.-Even that hallowed, social, shall I not say indigenous virtue-that blessed hospitality-which foreign envy could not deny, or foreign robbery despoil-which, when all else had perished, cast a bloom on our desolation, flinging its rich foliage over the national ruin, as if to hide the monument, while it gave a shelter to the mournereven that withered away before that pestilence! But what do I say! was virtue merely the victim of this adulterer? Worse, worse--it was his instrument-even on the broken tablet of the decalogue did he whet the dagger for his social assassination.— What will you say, when I inform you, that a few months before, he went deliberately to the baptismal font with the waters of life to regenerate the infant that, too well could he avouch it. had been born in sin, and he promised to teach it Christianity! And he promised to guard it against "the flesh!" And, lest infinite mercy should overlook the sins of its adulterous father.

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seeking to make God his pander, he tried to damn it even with the Sacrament!-See then the horrible atrocity of this case as it touches the defendant--but how can you count its miseries as attaching to the plaintiff! He has suffered a pang the most agonizing to human sensibility-it has been inflicted by his friend, and inflicted beneath his roof-it commences at a period which casts a doubt on the legitimacy of his children, and, to crown all, upon him a son is born" even since the separation, upon whom every shilling of his estates has entailed by settlement! What compensation can reprise so unparalleled a sufferer? What solitary consolation is there in reserve for him? Is it love? Alas, there was one whom he adored with all the heart's idolatry, and she deserted him. Is it friendship? There was one of all the world whom he trusted, and that one betrayed him. Is it society? The smile of others' happiness appears but the epitaph of his own. Is it solitude? Can he be alone while memory striking on the sepulchre of his heart, calls into existence the spectres of the past. Shall he fly for refuge to his "sacred home?" Every object there is eloquent of his ruin! Shall he seek a mournful solace in his children? Oh, he has no children-there is the little favourite that she nursed, and there-there-even on its guileless features-there is the horrid smile of the adulterer!

Oh Gentlemen, am I this day only the Counsel of my client! no-no-I am the advocate of humanity-of yourselves-your homes—your wives—your families—your little children; I am glad that this case exhibits such atrocity; unmarked as it is by any mitigatory feature, it may stop the frightful advance of this calamity; it will be met now, and marked with vengeance; if it be not, farewell to the virtues of your country; farewell to all confidence between man and man; farewell to that unsuspicious and reciprocal tenderness, without which marriage is but a ccnsecrated curse; if oaths are to be violated; laws disregarded; friendship betrayed; humanity trampled; national and individual honour stained; and if a jury of fathers, and of husbands will give such miscreancy a passport to their homes, and wives and daughters; farewell to all that yet remains of Ireland! But I will not cast such a doubt upon the character of my country Against the sneer of the foe, and the scepticism of the foreigner, I will still point to the domestic virtues, that no perfidy could barter, and no bribery can purchase, that with a Roman usage,

at once embellish and consecrate households, giving to the society of the hearth all the purity of the altar; that lingering alike in the palace and the cottage, are still to be found scattered over this land; the relic of what she was; the source perhaps of what she may be; the lone, the stately, and magnificent memorials, that rearing their majesty amid surrounding ruins serve at once as the land-marks of the departed glory, and the models by which the future may be erected.

Preserve those virtues with a vestal fidelity; mark this day, by your verdict, your horror at their profanation, and believe me, when the hand which records that verdict shall be dust, and the tongue that asks it, traceless in the grave, many a happy home will bless its consequences, and many a mother teach her little child to hate the impious treason of adultery.

SPEECH OF MR. PHILLIPS

AT THE SLIGO COUNTY MEETING.

ON Monday the 10th April, there was a large and respectable meeting in the court house, of the gentlemen, clergy, freeholders, and other inhabitants of the county of Sligo, for the purpose of taking into consideration an address of condolence to the king on the death of his royal father, and of congratulation to his majesty on his accession to the throne. Wm. Parke Esq. high sheriff, in the chair.

Owen Wynne Esq. moved an address.

Major O'Hara seconded the motion,

Charles Phillips Esq. then rose and spoke to the following effect:

I AM happy, sir, in having an opportunity of giving my concurrence both in the sentiment and principle of the proposed address. I think it should meet with the most perfect unanimity. The departed monarch deserves, and justly, every tribute which posterity can pay him. He was one of the most popular that ever swayed the sceptre of these countries. He never forgot his early declaration that he gloried in the name of Briton, and Britain now reciprocates the sentiment, and glories in the pride of his nativity. He was, indeed, a true-born Englishmen-brave, generous, benevolent and manly-in the exercise of his sway, and the exercise of his virtues so perfectly consistent that it is difficult to say whether as a man or sovereign he is most to be regretted. He commenced for the Catholic a conciliatory system-he preserved for the Protestant the inviolability of the constitution he gave to both a great example in the toleration of his principles and the integrity of his practice. The historian will dwell with delight upon those topics. He will have little to censure and much to commend. He will speak of arts, manufactures, literature encouraged he will linger long among those private virtues which wreathed themselves around his public