self-the man without a model, and without a shadow.

His fall, like his life, baffled all speculation. In short, his whole history was like a dream to the world, and no man can tell how or why he was awakened from the reverie.

Such is a faint and feeble picture of NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, the first (and it is to be hoped the last) emperor of the French.

That he has done much evil there is little doubt; that he has been the origin of much good, there is just as little. Through his means, intentional or not, Spain, Portugal, and France have arisen to the blessings of a Free Constitution; superstition has found her grave in the ruins of the inquisition; and the feudal system, with its whole train of tyrannic satellites, has fled for ever. Kings may learn from him that their safest study, as well as their noblest, is the interest of the people; the people are taught by him that there is no despotism so stupendous against which they have not a resource; and to those who would rise upon the ruins of both, he is a living lesson that if ambition can raise them from the lowest station, it can also prostrate them from the highest.

SPEECH

OF

MR. PHILLIPS

IN THE CASE OF

BROWNE v. BLAKE.

My Lords and Gentlemen,

I AM instructed by the plaintiff to lay his case before you, and little do I wonder at the great interest which it seems to have excited. It is one of those cases which come home to the "business and the bosoms of mankind-it is not confined to the individuals concerned-it visits every circle from the highest to the lowest-it alarms the very heart of the community, and commands the whole social family to the spot, where human nature prostrated at the bar of public justice, calls aloud for pity and protection! On my first addressing a jury on a subject of this nature, I took the high ground to which I deemed myself entitledstood upon the purity of the national character—I relied upon that chastity which centuries had made proverbial, and almost drowned the cry of individual suffering in the violated reputation of the country. Humbled and abashed, I must resign the topic-indignation at the novelty of the offence has given way to horror at the frequency

of the repetition. It is now becoming almost fashionable among us; we are importing the follies, and naturalizing the vices of the continent; scarcely a term passes in these courts, during which some unabashed adulterer or seducer does not announce himself improving on the odiousness of his offence, by the profligacy of his justification, and as it were, struggling to record, by crimes, the desolating progress of our barbarous civilization. Gentlemen, if this be suffered to continue, what home shall be safe, what hearth shall be sacred, what parent can, for a moment, calculate on the possession of his child, what child shall be secure against the orphan age that springs from prostitution; what solitary right, whether life or liberty, or property in the land, shall survive amongst us, if that hallowed couch which modesty has veiled and love endeared and religion consecrated, is to be invaded by a vulgar and promiscuous libertinism! A time there was when that couch was inviolable in Ireland-when conjugal infidelity was deemed but an inventionwhen marriage was considered as a sacrament of the heart, and faith and affection sent a mingled flame together from the altar; are such times to dwindle into a legend of tradition; are the dearest rights of man, and the holiest ordinances of God, no more to be respected! Is the marriage vow to become but the prelude to perjury and prostitution! Shall our enjoyments debase themselves into an adulterous participation, and our children propagate an incestuous community! hear the case which I am fated to unfold, and then tell me whether a single virtue is yet to linger amongst us with impunity-whether honour, friendship or hospitality, are to be sacred

whether that endearing confidence, by which the bitterness of this life is sweetened, is to become the instrument of a perfidy, beyond conception; and whether the protection of the roof, the fraternity of the board, the obligations of the altar, and the devotion of the heart, are to be so many panders to the hellish abominations they should have purified-Hear the case which must go forth to the world, but which I trust in God your verdict will accompany, to tell that world, that if there was vice enough amongst us to commit the crime, there is virtue enough to brand it with an indignant punishment.

Of the plaintiff, Mr. Browne, it is quite impossible but you must have heard much-his misfortune has given him a sad celebrity, and it does seem a peculiar incident to such misfortune that the loss of happiness is almost invariably succeeded by the deprivation of character. As the less guilty murderer will hide the corse that may lead to his detection, so does the adulterer, by obscuring the reputation of his victim, seek to diminish the moral responsibility he has incurred. Mr. Browne undoubtedly forms no exception to this system-betrayed by his friend, and abandoned by his wife, his too generous confidence, his too tender love has been slanderously perverted into the sources of calumny-because he could not tyranize over her whom he adored, he was carelessbecause he could not suspect him in whom he trusted, he was careless; and crime in the infatuation of its cunning found its justification even in the virtues of its victim! I am not deterred by the prejudice thus cruelly excited-I appeal from the gossiping credulity of scandal to the grave decision of fathers and of husbands, and I implore

of you, as you value the blessings of your homes, not to countenance the calumny which solicits a precedent to excuse their spoliation. At the close of the year 1809, the death of my client's father gave him the inheritance of an ample fortune. Of all the joys his prosperity created, there was none but yielded to the ecstacy of sharing it with her he loved, the daughter of his father's ancient friend, the respectable proprietor of Oren castle. She was then in the very spring of life, and never did the sun of Heaven unfold a lovelier blossom-her look was beauty and her breath was fragrance-the eye that saw her caught a lustre from the vision; and all the vision, and all the virtues seemed to linger round her, like so many spotless spirits enamoured of her lovelinesss.

"Yes, she was good as she was fair,
None, none on earth above her;
As pure in thought as angels are,
To see her, was to love her."

What years of tongueless transport might not her happy husband have anticipated! What one addition could her beauties gain to render them. all perfect! In the connubial rapture there was only one and he was blessed with it. A lovely family of infant children gave her the consecrated name of mother, and with it all that Heaven can give of interest to this world's worthlessness. Can the mind imagine a more delightful vision than that of such a mother, thus young, thus lovely, thus beloved, blessing a husband's heart, basking in a world's smile, and while she breathed into her little ones the moral light, showing them that robed in all the light of beauty, it was still