matter.

when the momentum lies not in his agility, but his weight, not in the quantity of motion, but the quantity of his There is another ground on which you are called upon to give most liberal damages, and that has been laid by the unfeeling vanity of the defendant. This business has been marked by the most elaborate publicity. It is very clear that he has been allured by the glory of the chace, and not the value of the game. The poor object of his pursuit could be of no value to him, or he would not have so wantonly and cruelly, and unneces- : sarily, advised her. He might easily have kept this unhappy intercourse, an unsuspected secret. Even if he had wished for her elopement, he might easily have so contrived it, that the place of her retreat would be professedly undiscoverable; yet though, even the expense, a point so tender to his delicate sensibility, of concealing, could not be one fortieth of the cost of publishing her, his. vanity decided him in favor of glory and publicity. By that election he has in fact put forward the Irish nation and its character, as often, and so variously calumniated, upon its trial before the tribunal of the empire; and your verdict will this day decide, whether an Irish jury can feel with justice and spirit upon the subject that involves conjugal affection and comfort, domestic honour and repose the certainty of peace-the weight of public opinion-the gilded and presumptuous criminality of overrunning rank and station. I doubt not, but he is at this moment, reclined on a silken sopha, anticipating that submissive and modest verdict, by which you will bear gently on his errors; and expecting from your patriotism, no doubt, that you will think again, and again, before you condemn any great portion of the immense revenue of a great absentee to be detained in the nation that produced it, instead of being transmitted, as it ought to be, to be expended in the splendor of another country. He is now probably waiting for the arrival of the report of this day,

which I understand a famous note-taker has been sent hither to collect, (Lockhart, the gentleman you disturbed). Gentlemen, let me assure you, it is more, much more, the trial of you, than of the noble marquis, of which this comforted recorder is at this moment collecting the materials. His noble employer is now expecting a report to the following effect. "Such a day came on to be tried at Ennis, before a special jury, the cause of Charles Massey against the most noble the marquis of . Headfort." It appeared that the plaintiff's wife was young, beautiful, and captivating. The plaintiff himself a person fond of this beautiful creature to distraction, and both doating on their child; but the noble marquis approached her, the pleasure of glory nodded in his breast. Not the goddess Minerva, but the goddess of Venus had lighted up his casque, "the fire that never tires-such as many a lady gay had been dazzled with before." At the first advance she trembled, at the second she struck to the redoubted son of Mars, and pupil of Venus. The jury saw it was not her fault (it was an Irish jury); they felt compassion for the tenderness of the mother's heart, and for the warmth of the lover's passion. The jury saw on the one side, a young entertaining gallant; on the other, a beauteous creature, of charms irresistible. They recollected that Jupiter had been always successful in his amours, although Vulcan had not always escaped some aukward accidents. The jury were composed of the fathers, brothers, husbands-but they had not the vulgar jealousy, that views better things of that sort with rigour, and wishing to assimilate their country in many respects to England, now that they are united to it, they, like English gentlemen, returned to their box," with a verdict of six-pence damages, and six-pence costs." Let this be sent to England; I promise you your odious secret will not be better kept than that of the wretched Mrs. Massey. There is not a bawdy-house chronicle in Lon

don, in which the epitaph which you have written even on yourselves will not be published, and our enemies will delight, as the spectacle of our precarious depravity, in seeing that we can be rotten before we are ripe. I do not suppose it; I do not, cannot, will not believe it; I will not harrow up myself with the anticipated apprehension.

"There is another consideration, gentlemen, which I think most imperiously demands a more vindictive award of exemplary damages, and that is the breach of hospitality. To us peculiarly does it belong to avenge the violation of its altar. The hospitality of other countries is a matter of necessity or convention; in savage nations of the first, in polished of the latter, but the hospitality of an Irishman is not the running account of posted and ledgered courtesies, as in other countries; it springs, like all his qualities, his faults, his virtues-directly and from his heart. The heart of an Irishman is in his nature bold, and he confides; it is tender, and he loves; it is generous, and he gives; it is social, and he is hospitable. This sacrilegious intruder has prophaned the religion of that sacred altar, so elevated in our worship, so precious to our devotion; and it is our privilege to avenge the crime. You must either pull down the altar and abolish the worship, or you must preserve this sanctuary undebased. There is no alternative between the universal exclusion of all mankind from your threshold, and the most rigorous punishment of him who is admitted and betrays. This defendant has been so trusted, has so betrayed; and you ought to make him a more signal example.

"Gentlemen, I am the more disposed to feel the strongest indignation and abhorrence at this odious conduct of the defendant, when I consider the deplorable condition to which he has reduced the plaintiff, and perhaps the still more deplorable one that he has in prospect before him. What a progress has he to travel through before he can attain the peace and tranquillity, which he

has lost? How like the wounds of the body are those of the mind! How burning the fever! How painful the suppuration, how slow, how hesitating, how relapsing the process to convalescence? Through what a variety of suf ferings, what new scenes and changes, must my unhappy client pass, ere he can re-attain, should he ever re-attain, the health of soul of which he has been despoiled by the cold and deliberate machinations of this practised and gilded seducer? If, instead of drawing upon his incalculable wealth for a scanty retribution, you were to stop the progress of his despicable achievements, by reducing him to actual poverty, you could not, even so, punish him beyond the scope of his offence, nor reprise the plaintiff beyond the measure of his suffering. Let me remind you, that in this action, the law not only empowers you, but that its policy commands you to consider the public example, as well as the individual injury, when you adjust the amount of your verdict: I confess I am most anxious that you should acquit yourselves worthily upon this occasion; I am addressing you as fathers, husbands, . brothers; I am anxious that a feeling of these high relations should enter into, and give dignity to your verdict. But I confess it, I feel a tender solicitude when I remember that I am addressing you as my countrymen, as Irishmen, whose characters as jurors, as gentlemen, must find either honor or degradation in the result of your decision. Small as must be that distributive share of national estimation, that can belong to so unimportant an individual as myself, yet I do own that I am tremblingly solicitous for its fate. Perhaps it appears of more value to me, because it is embarked on the same bottom with yours; perhaps the community of peril, of common safety, or common wreck, gives a consequence to my share of the risque, which I could not be vain enough to give it, if it were not raised to it by that mutuality. But why stoop to think at all of myself, when I know that

you gentlemen of the jury, when I know that our country itself are clients at this day, and must abide the alternative of honor, or of infamy, as you shall decide. But I will not despond, I will not dare to despond; I have every trust, and hope, and confidence in you. And as to that hope I will add my most fervent prayer to the God of all truth and justice, so to raise and enlighten and fortify your minds, that you may so decide, as to preserve to yourselves while you live, the most delightful of all recollections, that of acting justly, and to transmit to your children the most precious of all inheritance, the memory of your virtue."

The damages were laid at 30,000l.: the jury brought in a verdict of 10,000 1.

Mr. ERSKINE'S SPEECH to the Jury, in behalf of JOHN PETRIE, Esq. who was accused of criminal conversation with the wife of Henry Martin, Esq. of Galway, in Ireland.

"Gentlemen of the jury,

"You have heard the plaintiff's case, most ably and most powerfully stated and supported. My learned friend's address to you was affecting, and suitable to the occasion. If I could make any criticism on what has fallen from him, I should be sorry to point out a spot in the sun. Nevertheless I think he seemed to put you too much on your characters. He said, a report had gone forth that it had not been usual in this place to give large damages, thereby leading you with great address, and mixing your wishes with the verdict you are about to pronounce. Such a report, however, I affirm, never has been propagated; and if it had, it would have been found