CHAP. CLXXXII. new offer. This was the theme of Erskine's splendid apology, or rather retaliation, and countercharge:-"I have the noble Judge's authority for saying that the gist of this action is the plaintiff's loss of the comfort and society of his wife by the seduction of the defendant. The loss of her affection and of domestic happiness are the only foundations of his complaint. Now, before any thing can be lost, it must have existed, before any thing can be taken away from a man, he must have had it,-before the seduction of a woman's affections from her husband can take place, he must have possessed her affections..... In order, therefore, to examine this matter (and I shall support every syllable that I utter with the most precise and incontrovertible proofs), I will begin by drawing up the curtain of this blessed marriage-bed, whose joys are supposed to be nipped in the bud by the defendant's adulterous seduction. Nothing certainly is more delightful to the human fancy than the possession of a beautiful woman in the prime of health and youthful passion: it is beyond all doubt the highest enjoyment which God in his benevolence and for the wisest purposes has bestowed upon his own image: I reverence as I ought that mysterious union of mind and body which, while it continues our species, is the source of all our affections, which builds up and dignifies the condition of human life, which binds the husband to the wife by ties more indissoluble than laws can possibly create, and which by the reciprocal endearments arising from a mutual passion, a mutual interest, and a mutual honour, lays the foundation of that parental affection which dies in the brutes with the necessities of nature, but which reflects back upon the human parents the unspeakable sympathies of their offspring, and all the sweet, delightful relations of social existence. While the curtains therefore are still closed on this bridal scene, your imaginations will naturally represent to you this charming woman, endeavouring to conceal sensations which modesty forbids the sex, however enamoured, too openly to reveal,-wishing beyond adequate expression what she must not even attempt to express, and seemingly resisting what she burns to enjoy. Alas, gentlemen! you must pre CLXXXII. pare to see in the room of this a scene of horror and of CHAP. sorrow; you must prepare to see a noble lady, whose birth surely required no further illustration; who had been courted to marriage before she heard even her husband's name; and whose affections were irretrievably bestowed upon and pledged to my honourable and unfortunate client. You must behold her given up to the plaintiff by the infatuation of parents, and stretched upon the bridal bed as upon a rack, — torn from the arms of a beloved and impassioned youth, himself of noble birth, — only to secure the honours of a higher title, a legal victim on the altar of heraldry. Gentlemen, this is no high colouring for the purpose of a cause; no words of an advocate can go beyond the plain unadorned effect of the evidence: I will prove to you that when she prepared to retire to her chamber, she threw her desponding arms around the neck of her confidential attendant, and wept upon her as a criminal preparing for execution: I will prove to you that she met her bridegroom with sighs and tears-the sighs and tears of afflicted love for Mr. Bingham, and of rooted aversion to her husband. Gentlemen, this was not the sudden burst of youthful disappointment, but the fixed and settled habit of a mind deserving of a happier fate. I shall prove that she frequently spent her nights upon a couch, in her own apartments, dissolved in tears; that she frequently declared to her woman that she would rather go to Newgate than to Mr. Howard's bed; and it will appear by her own confession that for months subsequent to the marriage she distinctly refused him the privileges of a husband.... My learned friend deprecates the power of what he terms my pathetic eloquence. Alas, gentlemen, if I possessed it, the occasion forbids its exertion, because Mr. Bingham has only to defend himself, and cannot demand damages from Mr. Howard for depriving him of what was his by a title superior to any law which man has a moral right to make. Mr. Howard was NEVER MARRIED: God and nature forbad the banns of such a marriage. If, indeed, Mr. Bingham this day could have by me addressed to you his wrongs in the character of a plaintiff demanding reparation, what damages might I not have asked CLXXXII. - CHAP. for him?--and without the aid of this imputed eloquence, what damages might I not have expected? I would have brought before you a noble youth, who had fixed his affections upon one of the most beautiful of her sex, and who enjoyed hers in return, I would have shown you their suitable condition, I would have painted the expectation of an honourable union, and would have concluded by showing her to you in the arms of another, by the legal prostitution of parental choice in the teeth of affection, -with child by a rival, and only reclaimed at last, after so cruel and so afflicting a divorce, with her freshest charms despoiled and her very morals in a manner impeached, by asserting the purity and virtue of her original and spotless choice. Good God! imagine my client to be PLAINTIFF, and what damages are you not prepared to give him? And yet he is here as DEFENDANT, and damages are demanded against him. Oh, monstrous conclusion!" He went on in the same strain above an hour longer, taking occasion to warn the aristocracy of the ruin which the mercenary spirit which was here displayed would bring upon their order. The jury, as they afterwards declared, were resolved to find a verdict for the defendant, with heavy damages to be paid to him, till they were reminded by the Judge that no blame was imputable to the plaintiff, as he had not been made aware of the previous engagement; that when the lady, under whatever influence, had vowed to be his at the altar, and their hands had been joined by the priest, she became his wife according to the laws both of God and man; that their sacred union ought to have been respected by the defendant, however much he was to be pitied, as his wrongs were irremediable; that it was his duty to have fled from temptation, instead of cherishing a guilty flame; that he had inflicted an injury for which he was liable to make compensation, by rendering it impossible for the plaintiff ever to win the affections of his wife, or to behold her more; that the jury were bound by their oaths to find a verdict for the plaintiff, if they believed that the adultery had been committed, and that they would not be justified in affixing a brand upon him by awarding trifling damages. The jury at -- CLXXXII. last did find for the plaintiff, damages 5007. 10,0007. CHAP. being the lowest sum which in such cases was then usually awarded. * in Dun ton. In the case of Dunning v. Sir Thomas Turton, of which His speech we have a very imperfect report, Erskine appears to have ning v. Sir produced, perhaps, a still greater effect by describing the Thos. Turstate of a husband fondly attached to his wife, but suspecting her fidelity, painting in the most lively colours the different emotions of his soul the agonies of suspense - the feverish irritation of unrelieved doubt the struggles of the wounded spirit as to a fact, which, while the heart wanted to disbelieve, reason told him was but too true. The advocate excited the - most thrilling emotions when he quoted from Othello "Oh, what damned moments tells he o'er, Who doubts, believes, suspects, yet strongly loves." - "But," added he, with overwhelming force," when suspicion is realised into certainty, and his dishonour is placed beyond the reach of doubt, Despair assumes her dominion over the afflicted man, and well might he exclaim from the same page Had it pleased Heaven To try me with affliction; had He rain'd I should have found in some place in my soul He stopped, and tears filled every eye. His recitation was perfect, and his felicitous quotations, though carefully premeditated, seemed the spontaneous recollections of the moment. † It is with unfeigned sorrow that I must take leave of Erskine as an advocate at the bar, where his superiority to the rest of mankind was so striking, — and that I must now attend him through scenes in which he acted a subordinate * Erskine's Speeches, vol. v. 195–212. I was told by a barrister who had often been in causes with him that he used to produce his proposed quotations at consultation the night before, and take the opinion of his juniors upon them; but my learned informant was noted for "shooting with a long bow." CHAP. part, and in which justice requires that he should sometimes be severely censured. CLXXXII. 1798-1801. Erskine's secession from the Commons. - During the concluding years of Mr. Pitt's first Administration, Erskine almost entirely absented himself from the House of Commons, despairing of his party, and of the country, and House of defending the measures of secession to which the opposition leaders then imprudently resorted. I do not much wonder that he should not have taken part in the debates concerning the conduct of the war; for the prostrate Whigs were not able to get a hearing either in or out of Parliament, when they attempted to touch upon this subject,―tremendous majorities approving of the expedition to Walcheren, of the expedition to Ferrol, of the expedition to Quiberon, and of wasting the strength of the nation in taking Sugar Islands in the West Indies, for the extension of the slave trade. But it is remarkable that he should have been silent upon the Union with Ireland, and other great constitutional questions which were from time to time brought before the House of Commons. He probably persuaded himself that it was better for the public, that he should offer no resistance to the measures of the Government; and he had no pleasure in going from Westminster Hall, where he was applauded and triumphant, to St. Stephen's Chapel, where his powers of persuasion utterly failed, and where he was sometimes even slighted. He did speak in favour of a Bill to make adultery an indictable offence*, and he supported another Bill to check the establishment of monastic orders in this country †, neither of them being connected with politics; but he considered it vain to combat the supremacy of Pitt, who, having carried the Irish Union, and annihilated the Whig Opposition, seemed more firmly established in power than at any former period. Jan. 1801. Resigna tion of Mr. Pitt. But at the opening of the first session of the united Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland a rumour arose, that from the failure of his attempt to grant Catholic emancipation, or from a desire that peace should be negotiated by |