oration, which may still be read with delight, caused extraordinary emotion. Nor was the admiration with which it was regarded confined to those who heard him, for when Mr. Whiteside returned to take his place in the House of Commons, that critical and perhaps not very emotional assembly paid him the compliment of rising en masse in token of their respect. moved to tears even the judges, who assuredly | of Whiteside was looked forward to was inwere not easily impressed by appeals in favour tensified by the news that a near relative was of O'Connell and his friends. Again in 1848, ill, and that he would be unable to speak. he was the counsel at a great state trial, his This apprehension, however, proved to be client on this occasion being Smith O'Brien. incorrect. He appeared at the proper time, Of course he could not save the prisoner, whose and made, perhaps the greatest, certainly the deeds had been proclaimed in the light of day; most exciting of all the speeches he had yet but he made a splendid speech, and his cross- delivered. It is impossible to adequately deexamination of the informer Dobbyn is describe the effect which it produced, and the perscribed as a most exciting scene. A few years after this he had an opportunity of displaying his eloquence in a more conspicuous place-in 1851 he was returned as member for Enniskillen. It is notorious that the most eloquent orator at the bar is frequently the most ineffective speaker in parliament. With Whiteside this was not the case, and before long he had established a position at St. Stephen's equal to that he had so long held in his own country and his own profession. Just as in the Four Courts, he used to draw the loungers from the hall, and even the busy from the surrounding courts, when he was addressing a jury, so in parliament the news that he was on his feet brought to the house a rush of members from the library, or dining-room, or lobby. He attained soon the position of being one of the chief spokesmen of the Conservative party, and on several most important occasions was considered an equal antagonist to such eminent Liberal orators as Gladstone or Bright. More than once, too, when a great question arose he was put forward as the mover of the Conservative resolution. During the debates on the Crimean war he had a vigorous encounter with Mr. Gladstone, in which he certainly proved himself fully equal to the occasion. Among his other more remarkable speeches may be mentioned that on the Kars debate in April 1856, on Italy in July 1859, on America in 1861, and on the Irish Church Bill in 1863, and several subsequent occasions. When his party came into power, he was, of course, raised to office, becoming in 1852 solicitor-general, and in 1858 attorney-general for Ireland. During this period he was still actively engaged in his profession, and in 1861 he added another to his many forensic triumphs. He was one of the counsel for Miss Longworth in the famous Yelverton trial. It is not necessary to dilate here on the enormous excitement which that case everywhere produced, and nowhere to such an extent as in Ireland, where sympathy with the sex, the religion, and the wrongs of the lady evoked an extraordinary amount of popular enthusiasm in her favour. The interest with which the speech VOL. IV. In 1866, with the return of the Conservative party to office, Mr. Whiteside once more became attorney-general. He held this post for but a few weeks, the resignation of Mr. Lefroy leaving a vacancy in the lord chiefjusticeship of the Queen's Bench. It was almost a necessity of his position, perhaps also of his years, that he should have accepted this office. But it added nothing to his fame, and perhaps little to his comfort. His mind was not of the judicial cast, and his legal learning was not supposed to be profound. He, therefore, could not hope to add to his fame as an orator that of a great judge. He seemed himself to be scarcely ever comfortable in his new position. The wild humour, with which he had been accustomed to set both the bar and the House of Commons in a roar, had to be replaced by an ill-assumed gravity, and might be said to degenerate in the end into mopishness. He dropped almost entirely out of public sight, a thing that must have been particularly galling to a man who had lived so conspicuously for the greater part of his life in the eye of the public. On the 25th November, 1876, he died at Brighton, whither he had gone for the good of his health. In addition to his speeches he has left behind some literary productions, but none of these are equal to his great abilities. A tour for the benefit of his health produced Italy in the Nineteenth Century-a work sketchy, disconnected, commonplace; and only remarkable by raising controversies of doubtful utility. This, first published in 1848, passed through six editions. l'icissitudes of the Eternal City, published in 1849, consists almost entirely of translation from a sort of guide-book by Signor Canini, and is not of any particular importance. Of higher interest are his lectures, 68 delivered on various occasions; two of them | marriage-a marriage good according to the especially, entitled "Life and Death of the Irish Parliament." A volume of his essays and lectures, historical and literary, was published in 1869.] THE YELVERTON CASE. EXTRACT FROM THE SPEECH. I wish I could bring you into the solitary chamber of Teresa Longworth, when he [Major Yelverton] impressed on her religious mind that he sympathized with her and her religion -when he stood beside her at the mass, when he argued with her upon the nature of the sacrament that contracting parties might confer upon themselves-when he went with her, at Warrenpoint and Rostrevor, to the service of the Church-when he seemed to understand as well as herself, when he prayed with her in the ritual of the Church after he gained her by the marriage at Rostrevor-and, above all, when he heard of his sister's letter, in which she asked him if it was true he had embraced the Roman Catholic religion, which was distinctly stated in his presence, and admitted by his own conduct. After all these facts you have the crowning act of his entering a Roman Catholic church to be married by a Roman Catholic priest, whose questions, even on his own evidence, he answered in a prevaricating way that he was a Roman Catholic, but, upon the evidence of the woman who stood beside him, and whose fate in life depended upon the validity of the marriage, he answered that he was a Catholic, and no Protestant. Combine these facts together-unite them all. I submit they are not contravened by the doubtful evidence given on the other side of sergeants and corporals-who go to church only to go to sleep- of them who saw him in church once in three years, and that evidence, unaccompanied with the performance of any one solemn rite, such as the acceptance of the sacrament, which, in a sense, binds a man to his religion. Lastly, I submit that if you come to the conclusion that the day he knelt down before priest Mooney, and clasped the hand of the woman who knelt by his side, he then and there represented by his language, conduct, and demeanour that he was of the Roman Catholic religion,-law, reason, justice, morality, and that religion which has been degraded by the argument on the part of the defendant-all unite to induce you to find a verdict that will bind him by the argument of his own counsel, as good as if performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, good in conscience, good in the sight of God, good in the face of the Church, good in the face of the world, if it were not for a penal statute of the time of George II., that in my opinion was never passed to meet such a case as this. The great question in the case is whether you believe Teresa Longworth. In order to damage her character, to assail her virtue, in order to destroy her love for truth, they say that before she was wedded to this defendant she spoiled herself of the rich jewel of her virtue. How is that proved? Look at the reason of the thing. First look at the facts. He says he admired her, he says she was agreeable-he says, in this evidence of his, which I cannot stop to readindignation, if I did, might prevent my proceeding-that, as he sat beholding her, young and beautiful, in the convent of Galeta, then it was he formed the design of making her his mistress. If that was his design-it was not her design that she should be so. He wishes still to be near her. He is found with her at Edinburgh and Rostrevor. I ask you, do you believe that if he had attained the grand object of his desires, if he had gained possession of her person, was master of the great secret of her life-do you believe he would have gone to that church and put himself into the predicament in which he stands to-day, by becoming her wedded husband? Do you believe that this man, who has been represented to you by his counsel as a skilful seducer-do you believe that this man, who planned her ruin, who pursued his object persistently for a long period of time, who travelled with her from Waterford to Rostrevor, and who has studied and learned the various degrees of the great crime of seduction, that he, if he had gained his object, would ever have married her in the church of Kilone? Impossible! To weaken the force of her testimony, he tells you of occurrences at Edinburgh, and in the Hull steamer, which you will not believe, which are contradicted by everything in the case, by all his own acts. He got the bill from Cummins's Hotel at Waterford, and would not produce it, nor allow us to give evidence about it. He went everywhere to get every bit and scrap of evidence upon which he could rely. He produces from the Rostrevor Hotel a bill dated the 15th, the fact being that he was married on the 15th, and did not leave the hotel till the 18th; and with all this inquiring married people. Love and anxiety on his part. On her part a statement of all the difficulties and embarrassments to which, as his wife, she was subjected in a distant country-letters addressed to her as his wife, letters from her to him as her husband-all things clear, intelligent, and distinct, until, at last, there is a letter-glided over by Sergeant Armstrong, which I call the Christmas-day letter, and if there is one of you who has a doubt that there was a secret lawful marriage, I beg of you to hear what Major Yelverton himself has written on the subject. "I have every reason," he says, "to believe that next June will see you through the scrape." No one denies that tallies with the date of the mar and searching there is not a solitary fact established against her. But, says the defendant "You artful woman, you temptress, you enchantress, why did you dare to send anybody round the different hotels to ascertain what could be proved against you?" Who is it puts that question? The defendant. And what is he detected in having done? He cut a lock of hair from the head of a child seven years old, that he thought was like the hair on the head of the woman he had deceived, and that he intended to marry, and not to marry, and that he wants now to unmarry. He gets a piece of a gown he says she wore, and he places before his witnesses what is not the hair of his wife, and a piece of a dress that may not have been the dress of that injured woman, and endeavours to fab-riage. He writes:-" Carrissima mia-I fear ricate evidence to destroy her character as he had destroyed her happiness; and when, by accident, we learned it,—for we knew it not, Iaver, until the lady in the box told you the story of the lock of hair, which her counsel heard then for the first time, we asked how it was discovered, the young woman, Miss Crabbe, was telegraphed for, and now that she has arrived, why are you not to believe her? Sergeant Armstrong talked of murder. What would be your feelings if you had been on the point of sending to the gallows a fellow-being upon the evidence of Bridget Cole and Rose Fagan that the woman who sat in the witness-box was the woman who called on them, a statement falsified before your own eyes? Would you ever enjoy a happy hour?-would you ever fail to deplore the rash act you had done as jurors in being persuaded by rash evidence of identity to take away the life of your innocent fellow-creature? Honour and virtue are as dear to woman as life. Why should you rob her of her honour, all that is left her, upon the rotten testimony that has been concocted against her? Why did we do what we did in this respect? Because we found what was being fabricated against us. That young woman told you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and she has demonstrated that what was sworn by Cole and the other woman is entirely and absolutely false. What, therefore, becomes of that portion of the case? It has vanished. It is gone. What is the remainder of this case on the correspondence? I pray attention to it. The correspondence read by my learned friend (Sergeant Sullivan), who, like a lawyer, commenced where he ought to commence, and gave it from the date of the marriage to the closing awful scene that took place at Leith, is all through, I say, the correspondence of it is not a reservation of bon bons that has caused my silence this time, but what you wrote in your last letter but one. You say I told you my resolution in case certain events did occur. You were very angry, but it would be my duty, and if I love I must do it. Your resolution is founded on false views. Where is your duty of keeping faith with me? I have never intentionally deceived you, and have done more than I promised at great risk.” Was that a voyage up the Rhine, gentlemen? No. I call on you to believe that what he there refers to was the marriage ceremony in the church at Rostrevor. "I told you the event we fear could be avoided, and you certainly cannot doubt that it is equally unwelcome to me as it can be to you; but, if the future proves that I have been deceived by others, that will not absolve you from your faith, the which, if you break with me, you will never from that moment have even one of tolerable content during the rest of your life. If you do feel any love for me you must change that resolution. If I depart this life you may speak; or, if you do, you may leave a legacy of the facts; but whilst we both live you must trust me and I must trust you. When I find my trust misplaced, if you have any affection for me, I do not envy you the future. Your duty lies this way, not that." Gentlemen of the jury, what does that mean? What, I again ask, does it mean? It means this-I, your inexorable master, warn you that you must not disclose our marriage. I care not for the birth of a child. Secrecy is the bond. No matter how you are exposed, no matter how you are degraded, I have made a sacrifice for you, and whatever may be your feelings as a gentlewoman, a wife, and a mother, you must endure the disgrace, or else you shall never have one happy hour for the rest of your life. What is the argument of his counsel? That from the day he was at Galeta he was her deliberate, skilful, scientific, and unconscionable seducer. that when the mysterious union between soul and body is dissolved, the high affections of our nature, purified, spiritualized, immortalized, may add to the felicity unspeakable reserved for the spirits of the just made perfect through the countless ages of eternity. She gave him her affections-she gave him her love --a woman's love! Who can fathom its depths? Who can measure its intensity? Who can describe its devotion? She told you herself what that love was when she wrote to him, "If you were to be executed as a convict I would stand below the gallows." If he had taken that woman for his wife misery would have endeared him to her, poverty she would have shared, from sickness or misfortune she would never have fled; she would have been his constant companion, his guide, his friend-his polluted mistress, never! Therefore, I now call on you to do justice to that injured woman. You cannot restore her to the husband she adored or the happiness she enjoyed. You cannot give colour to that faded cheek, or lustre to that eye that has been dimmed by many a tear. You cannot relieve the sorrows of her bursting heart, but you may restore her to her place in society. You may, by your verdict, enable her to say, "Rash I have been, indiscreet I may have been through excess of my affection for you, but guilty, never!" You may replace her in the rank which she would never disgraceyou may restore her to that society in which she is qualified to shine, and has ever adorned! To you I commit this great cause. I am not able longer to address you. Would to God I had talents or physical energy to exert either or both longer on the part of this injured, in Though, says the defendant (by his argument), I have added hypocrisy, profanity, deception, and blasphemy, I am not bound to pay for the sustenance of this woman. I am not her wedded husband, I stand before you her profligate and unprincipled seducer. I found her young, I found her virtuous, I found her beautiful. What is she now? Innocence defiled, virtue lost, beauty spoiled, and hopes of life fled for ever. Better the hand of death had swept her to an early grave; it would have been consecrated by the tears of maternal affection-gentle tears, recalling happy memories of the past, assuaged and checked by blessed hopes of a bright immortal future. He has blasted her happiness in this life, he has endangered it in the life to come, according to his own argument. Save him from the consequences of that argument, and do not brand him, as his counsel do, as a scientific, deliberate, unprincipled seducer. How stands the question, now that the whole of this great trial is before you-now that you have all these facts-and I cannot dwell at this hour minutely upon each particular circumstance, as I might have done if I had gained you at an earlier hour of the day, in endeavouring to reason it step by step? I ask you to judge of that woman as she has appeared before you; and then say, Do you believe her? Trace her life up from the first hour that she stood within the wall of the convent until the day she sat in that box to tell the story of her multitudinous sor-sulted woman. She finds an advocate in rows. Ask yourselves what fact has been proved against her with any living man save the defendant. Her crime is she loved him too dearly, and too well. Had she possessed millions, she would have flung them at his feet. Had she a throne to bestow, she would have placed him on that throne. She gave him the kingdom of her heart, and made him sovereign of her affections. There he reigned with undisputed sway. Great the gift! Our affections were by an Almighty hand planted in the human heart. They have survived the fall, and repaired the ravages of sin and death. They dignify, exalt, and inspire our existence here below, which, without them, were cold, monotonous, and dull. They unite heart to heart by adamantine links. Nor are their uses limited to this life. We may well believe youshe finds it in the respected judge on the bench-she finds it in every heart that beats within this court, and in every honest man throughout the country. IN DEFENCE OF C. G. DUFFY.' I have told you what constitutes the great crime of conspiracy; it is one of combination, and it is fearfully set forth in books, so often quoted in the history of the state trials of England, where there are terrible examples given of wrong verdicts, by which men were deprived of their liberty, their lives, and by which innocence was struck down. But, on the other hand, there were in those state trials 1 For a notice of Charles Gavan Duffy, see page 1) great and glorious examples of triumphs over | lished tyranny, swept away the monstrous power, over the crown, and over kings-as in abuses it rears, and established the liberties the case of Hardy on parliamentary reform, under which we live. Free discussion, since and in the case of Horne Tooke, who saved that glorious epoch, has not only preserved public opinion so far from being extinguished but purified our constitution, reformed our in England, and which would have been the laws, reduced our punishments, and extended case had not the jury interfered. In earlier its wholesome influence to every portion of days, in the days of the Second James, the our political system. The spirit of inquiry it seven bishops were charged with a conspiracy creates has revealed the secrets of naturefor asserting the opinion of freedom; but then explained the wonders of creation, teaching a jury also interfered, and those bishops were the knowledge of the stupendous works of acquitted, and acquitted amidst those shouts God. Arts, science, civilization, freedom, pure which proclaimed universal freedom. In religion, are its noble realities. Would you darker periods of history-in the times of undo the labours of science, extinguish literaCromwell, who usurped the monarchy and all ture, stop the efforts of genius, restore ignorunder the sacred name of religion, yet dared ance, bigotry, barbarism, then put down free not to abolish the forms of public justice, they discussion, and you have accomplished all. so prevailed and subsisted-that when, in the Savage conquerors, in the blindness of their plenitude of his power, he prosecuted for a ignorance, have scattered and destroyed the libel, there were twelve honest men who had intellectual treasures of a great antiquity. the courage not to pronounce the defendant Those who make war on the sacred rights of guilty, thus proving that the unconquerable free discussion, without their ignorance imitate love of liberty still survived in the hearts of their fury. They may check the expression of Englishmen. I will say that the true object some thought which, if uttered, might redeem of this unprecedented prosecution is to stifle the liberties or increase the happiness of man. the discussion of a great public question. The insidious assailants of this great prerogaReviewed in this light, all other considerations tive of intellectual beings, by the cover under sink into insignificance; its importance be- which they advance, conceal the character of comes vast indeed. A nation's rights are in- their assault upon the liberties of the human volved in the issue-a nation's liberties are race. They seem to admit the liberty to disat stake-that won-what preserves the pre- cuss-blame only its extravagance, pronounce cious privileges you possess? The exercise of hollow praises on the value of freedom of the right of political discussion-free, untram-speech, and straightway begin a prosecution melled, bold. The laws which wisdom framed -the institutions struck out by patriotism, learning, or genius-can they preserve the springs of freedom fresh and pure? No; detroy the right of free discussion, and you dry up the sources of freedom. By the same means by which your liberties were won, can they be increased or defended. Do not quarrel with the partial evils free discussion creates, nor seek to contract the enjoyment of the greatest privilege within the narrow limit timid men prescribe. With the passing mischiefs of its extravagance, contrast the prodigious bless-peace-a death-like stillness--by repressing ings it has heaped on man. to cripple or destroy it. The open despot avows his object is to oppress or enslave-resistance is certain to encounter his tyranny, and perhaps subvert it. Not so the artful assailant of a nation's rights-he declares friendship while he wages war, and professes affection for the thing he hates. State prosecutions, if you believe them, are ever the fastest friends of freedom. They tell you peace is disturbed, order broken by the excesses of turbulent and seditious demagogues. No doubt there might be a seeming the feelings and passions of men. So in the Free discussion aroused the human mind fairest portions of Europe this day, there is from the torpor of ages-taught it to think, and peace, and order, and submission, under patershook the thrones of ignorance and darkness. nal despotism, ecclesiastical and civil. That Free discussion gave to Europe the Reforma- peace springs from terror, that submission tion, which I have been taught to believe the from ignorance, that silence from despair. mightiest event in the history of the human Who dares discuss, when with discussion and race-illuminated the world with the radiant by discussion tyranny must perish? Compare light of spiritual truth. May it shine with the stillness of despotism with the healthful steady and increasing splendour! Free dis- animation, the natural warmth, the bold lancussion gave to England the Revolution, abo-guage, the proud bearing, which spring from |