But every man who considered their assertions for a moment, must think it as improbable as it would be extraordinary, that a lady of her rank, who might have commanded a hundred places and opportunities for such purposes, would have chosen to expose her amours to the privity and blackguarding scrutiny of her coachmen and footmen-and this too in her own coach, upon the high road, in broad day, when so many people were passing and repassing, he thought it a most enormous improbability, that a woman of her rank would be guilty of a fact so beastly and so shameless!—it was scarcely to be believed of the most libidinous prostitute-and therefore he trusted the jury would be extremely cautious indeed, before they believed such assertions upon such kind of testimony, on a charge so materially affecting the family, the fame, and the property of an individual, whose only reliance in this case, for justice, was the sound discretion of an honest, conscientious, and discerning jury.

But, if the jury should differ with him as to the probability of the facts, the next thing to be considered was the quantum of damages which ought to be demanded in such a case. He owned, he did expect from the statement set out by the learned solicitor, on the commencement of this trial, that some evidence would be produced, to prove the existence of an intimacy or familiar friendship between his client and the noble earl who was plaintiff in this case, or that some extraordinary stratagems had been used by his client to debauch the morals and entrap the chastity of an innocent, virtuous, inexperienced young lady, in order to justify his lordship's claim for damages; but no such proof appeared: no violation of friendship or hospitality had been even attempted to be proved against his client. Much has been said of the wounds inflicted on the feelings and domestic happiness of the noble earl. Such indeed might be the plea of a man in the hum. ble industrious walks of life, the inexperienced innocence of whose conjugal partner falling a prey to the stratagems of some artful seducer, might indeed be said to deprive him of

the affections of the partner of his humble industry, the fond attendant on his sick bed, the frugal companion of his thrifty but comfortable board, the friend and mother of his rising offspring, and the object of all his hope, all his affection, and all his felicity. Such a man indeed might justly complain of the privation of all his comforts, and the most incurable wounds inflicted upon his earthly happiness, and such alman would come to a jury of his country, with the justest claims for reparation in damages against the wealthy and artful seducer. But did the plaintiff in this case come forward with such claims? In the breasts of the great folks of the present day, fashionable manners, there was but too much reason to believe, had repressed those feelings upon such topics, though they might, in the coarse and vulgar feelings of men in humble life, wear the greatest acumen.

The loss of comfort, the privation of happiness, was by no means so great in fashionable life; for there, the wife was not the constant partner of her husband's pleasures, or his discomfitures-nor the affectionate nurse attendant on his sick bed-nor his fond comforter in adversity-nor the protector of his children when he dies. For, in fashionable life, dissipation, not comfort, is the object of both, and the man of rank has his consolation in another way for those infidelities, which, perhaps, owe their origin to his own misconduct. It is to the pang of suffering, and not to the plumage of title, that compensation is due. The jury, therefore, would not suffer themselves to be bantered into an idea, that a great man was to have damages in a case of this sort proportionate to his titular rank, without adverting to the proportion which the injury bore to his feelings, and the cause of that injury to his own conduct.

Could it be supposed, that the tender feelings of conjugal affection and domestic comfort bear the same proportion as in humble and industrious life, in those ranks of fashionable dissipation, where, while the husband lavishes his time and fortune at the club-house, the banquet, or the gaming table;

night after night-the wife rolls her voiture, at midnight, from theatres to drums, from drums to routs, from routs to masquerades, attended by her cudgelled footmen and blazing flambeaux, and dashing through all the rounds of fashionable rakery from midnight till morning? In such a round of modern high life, the idea of domestic comfort and conjugal felicity, is mere Arcadian fancy! The learned gentleman, in painting the injuries sustained by his noble client on this ground, knew very well he was painting from the scenes of "his early reading," and not from his own ob servations on modern manners; and if such feelings, under such circumstances, were only to be found in the romance of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia, the damages in such a case ought not to exceed the price of the book.

It was stated that Lord Westmeath's feelings were agonized, and his pride irreparably hurt, by losing "the consolations and comforts of his lady's company and conversation!" Lord Westmeath, in Ireland, rolling away with one equipage for months together, in all the rounds of fashionable luxury and amusement, in the enjoyment of the bottle, and the pageantry of the camp; and Lady Westmeath, in London, swaggering away in another equipage in all the rounds of fashionable dissipation and amusement-for months too-and then poor Lord Westmeath complains of "the loss of his comforts!" in the privation of his lady's company and conversation, not more than two hundred miles from him, by his own choice, for eight months together! The idea was, in fact, too ludicrous for the serious reflection of a rational and discerning jury.

One point, however, was most important for their consideration. It was, whether the plaintiff in this case had taken that care of the morals and the conduct of his wife, which his authority and his duty, as a husband, enabled and called on him to do? How did the fact appear in evidence? Lord Westmeath comes over to Ireland; and leaving his wife in London, exposed to all those temptations which a

round of gay life and fashionable levity might be supposed to present-with a fortune, an equipage, and a house at her command, complete mistress of her own conduct and propensities!

How stood the charge with respect to his client in this case? What had appeared from the evidence of the clergyman? Lady Westmeath, not, as the learned solicitor had painted her ladyship, an innocent young female, inexperienced, and such as might be supposed unwary and unripe in the ways of the world; but an experienced matron, twelve years married, the mother of several children, and well practised in all the mysteries, modes, and dissipations of the gay world! What was Mr. Bradshaw? Not an experiençed rake, versed in the arts of seduction by the vitious practice of years, but the younger brother of a respectable family, not many years emerged from the control of his tutor-and of an age young enough almost for the lady to have been his mother!

Was this the young lady of innocence and inexperience, polished education, exalted sentiments, and refined feelings whom the learned counsel had painted in such glowing and angelic tints with the bloom of the plumb unbroken upon her cheek—and all the blossoms of youthful innocence flowering and flourishing around her? Was the lady a bird of that age likely to be caught with the sort of chaff which his youthful client might be supposed to cast before her, if her own inclinations had not led HER to be the DECOY, without the necessity of stratagem?

Suppose that on the part of his client he were to admit the whole of the facts stated in evidence-yet, would not the jury consider the rank and the years of the lady-the utter improbability that any advances of a criminal kind would have proceeded from a young gentleman, who, from his years, must be supposed inexperienced in the dissipations of fashionable life, as his client was? And, would not the jury consider the uncontrolled freedom in which Lord West

meath permitted his lady to range through all the rounds of fashionable dissipation-exposed to all those temptations that beset a woman of levity-absent from her husband-unchecked by the vigilance of her friends-and prone to every indulgence in pleasure and luxury, which her rank and fortune could supply? And, would not a jury, thus considering, even if they believed the facts, make a wide difference, indeed, between the imputed guilt of his client, and that of a common seducer, who had triumphed over the chastity of an innocent and inexperienced female? They must surely consider his client as the party seduced-and in estimating the damages, if they should think any were justly due, they should apportion them to the feelings and not to the rank of the plaintiff-they would consider, how lightly bagatelles and faux pas of this kind were thought of in the circles of HIGH LIFE-they would consider how far his lordship's own conduct and neglect were instrumental to the injury of which he complained-they would estimate the uncontrolled influence of modern and fashionable manners upon the minds of high rank-and find such a verdict as, upon due consideration, became the good sense and conscientious justice of moral and discerning men.

Counsellor Saurin, on behalf of the plaintiff, said, that considering the strength of the evidence adduced on behalf of his client, and the irrefragable proofs upon which his case had been substantiated, he felt no necessity to say any thing to the jury, in reply to what had fallen from the learned counsel on the other side, notwithstanding the eloquence and ingenuity with which he had argued on behalf of his client; he should therefore rest with the discretion of the court, for any observations upon the evidence, in this case, which might be deemed necessary for the direction of the jury.

Lord Chief Baron Yelverton then addressed the jury, observing, that the present case was of such a nature as required very little exertion indeed, on the part of the plaintiff's counsel, to aggravate the injury proved in evidence; a case,