The concluding part of Mr. Brougham's speech is equally open to the double objection of being in principle wrong, and in policy injudicious. If the assembly which he was addressing were really liable, taken as a body, to be influenced by personal fear, the grounds of intimidation were obvious, and the cause of the Queen would have had the same advantage from them without the mention of them by the advocate. To mention them therefore was gratuitous, and, as far as it was likely to operate at all, was likely to create a counter effort to avoid the imputation; but it was moreover highly indecorous, not to say dangerous, to appeal to a motive which ought to be the last to influence honourable minds in the dispensation of distributive justice. The speech in general cannot but be highly thought of as an oratorical performance: to us it appears to be defective in address, and in the talent of persuasion, while it abounds in a species of invective that produces revolt and reaction in the hearer, and falls very short of that tone of sentiment and pathos of expresion which, if they do not impart the dignity of truth, imply at least sincerity of feeling. "Such, my lords (Mr. Brougham continued), is the case now before you, and such is the evidence by which it is attempted to be upheld. It is evidence-inadequate, to prove any proposition; impotent, to deprive the lowest subject of any civil right; ridiculous, to establish the least offence; scandalous, to support a charge of the highest nature; monstrous, to ruin the honour of the Queen of Eng land. What shall I say of it, then, as evidence to support a judicial act of legislature, an ex-post facto law? My lords, I call upon you to pause. You stand on the brink of a precipice. If your judgment shall go out against your Queen, it will be the only act that ever went out without effecting its purpose; it will return to you upon your own heads. Save the country-save yourselves. Rescue the country; save the people, of whom you are the ornaments; but, severed from whom, you can no more live than the blossom that is severed from the root and tree on which it grows. Save the country, therefore, that you may continue to adorn it-save the crown, which is threatened with irreparable injury-save the aristocracy, which is surrounded with danger-save the altar, which is no longer safe when its kindred throne is shaken. You see that when the church and the throne would allow of no church solemnity on behalf of the Queen, the heart-felt prayers of the people rose to Heaven for her protection. I pray Heaven for her; and I here pour forth my fervent supplications at the throne of mercy that mercies may descend on the people of this country richer than their rulers have deserved, and that your hearts may be turned to justice." (Speech of Mr. Brougham, p. 57, 58.) Of the speech of the second counsel for the Queen, which is also referred to at the head of this article, we cannot speak in terms of praise. It is hostile, and heavy, vituperative without being vehement-unjust without plausibility. The comparisons of the case of George the Fourth and the present Queen with that of Henry the Eighth and Ann Boleyn, and that of the Emperor Nero and Octavia, stand upon no other foundation of resemblance than the mere fact of the separation between man and wife: the grounds of the separation, and the conduct of the parties, are so strikingly dissimilar, that the comparisons were only fit for the display of contrast. Comparisons, indeed, are grossly unjust upon such an occasion: it is a sort of case that can receive no illustration but from a candid inquiry into all and only its own peculiar circumstances. We are determined, however, not to be led into this question, and shall content ourselves with observing upon Mr. Denman's allusions to Henry the Eighth and Nero, that those wicked and detestable men will only continue to be without parallels in this country, as long as a just sense of liberty, and a manly feeling of attachment to the principles of the constitution as settled in 1688, shall prevail to keep under that malignant spirit, the offspring of continental atheism, which compels into its service every distress and every casualty, as they arise, and arise they will in every political system, for the purpose of throwing into confusion the arrangements for human happiness-that paradise which its devilish nature is tormented by beholding. The Greek quotation we cannot but think was in very bad taste, to say no worse of it; we will not disturb it by any further remark. The conclusion of this speech is the only part of it which shall draw from us any additional comment. Within a little space it encloses many ridiculous errors. The simile drawn from fighting and conquering is surcharged, and spiritless, the effervescence of puerile commonplace. If the triumph of his learned friend was complete, no random arrows ought to have been shot; it was a superfluous and a dangerous chivalry that might do harm by wounding an ally in the tumult of conflict; and indeed the last random arrow upon this occasion might well have rested quietly in its quiver. The Lords are called upon to imitate the justice displayed in a case where mercy and not justice was displayed; and to imitate in a case of asserted innocence a behaviour applicable only to a case of undissembled guilt, not to mention the concession involved in the recommendation. It is doubted by a contradictory scepticism whether Omniscience itself possesses the power of arriving at the secrets of the female in question. The sacred allusions which occur in this part of the speech are offensive to propriety-we will not in this place assume any thing of a higher principle. "The down-sitting, and up-rising" words so beautiful in the place from which they are borrowed, and borrowed much at random, appear to us most unsuitably arranged with the context into which they are forced; and we will say only of the phrases, "I know nothing in the whole race of human affairs, nathing in the whole view of eternity" that they must be er-. roneously printed. "Before I conclude, I must be permitted to say, that during the whole of this proceeding (though personally I have every reason to thank the House for its kindness and indulgence) the highest gratification resulting to my mind has been, that with my learned friend I have been joined upon this great occasion. We have fought the battles of morality, Christianity, and civilized society throughout the world; and, in the language of the dying warrior I may say, In this glorious and well-foughten field While he was atchieving the immortal victory, the illustrious triumph, and protecting innocence and truth, by the adamantine shield of his prodigious eloquence, it has been my lot to discharge only a few random arrows at the defeated champions of this disgraceful cause. The House will believe me when I say, that I witnessed the display of his surprising faculties with no other feelings, than a sincere gratification that the triumph was complete; and admiration and delight, that the victory of the Queen was accomplished. This is an inquiry, my Lords, unprecedented in the history of the world: the down-sitting and uprising of this illustrious lady have been sedulously and anxiously watched she uttered no word that had not to pass through this severe ordeal. Her daily looks have been remarked, and scarcely even her thoughts escaped the unparalleled and disgraceful assiduity of her malignant enemies. It is an inquisition, also, of a most solemn kind. I know nothing in the whole race of human affairs, nothing in the whole view of eternity, which can even remotely resemble it; but the great day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed! : He who the sword of Heaven will bear and if your Lordships have been furnished with powers, which I might As our object has all along been not to discuss the question of the Queen's guilt or innocence, but to consider the characteristic features of the times connected with it, we shall of course not enter into any detail with respect to the matters stated or commented upon in the published speeches of the Attorney or Solicitor-General, which we have also taken as the subjects of this article. For perspicuous and well-digested narrative, for lucid exposition and judicious comment, the speeches of the AttorneyGeneral upon this memorable occasion are, in our opinion, very worthy to be studied and imitated by the profession in general. They are perfectly free from the rhetorical exaggeration, puerile ambition, false ornament, and affected bluster of the bar; and they are sustained precisely at the proper elevation for the dignity of the speaker and the exigence of the occasion; so that it seems to us to be quite impossible for any candid person with his mind at liberty upon the subject, not to feel the stress of truth and sincerity powerfully affecting him from the very style and character of the composition, independently of its arguments and deductions. The conclusion of the Attorney-General's reply appears to us to be peculiarly able. He sharpens his steel at the forge of the Philistines, and makes them furnish the means of their own discomfiture. The passages in the speeches for the defence, which we have alluded to in terms of censure, on account of their want of principle or propriety, are very skilfully and effectually turned against the speakers in the following peroration: "I congratulate your lordships that I now approach the end of my task. It has been my duty, my anxious duty, to call your Lordships' attention to the evidence given at your bar. In this duty I have endeavoured rigidly to confine myself. I hope your Lordships will acquit me of having unnecessarily appealed to your passions or your feelings. Such has not been my object. I have endeavoured merely to perform the only duty imposed upon me by your Lordships, that of laying the evidence before you, and to comment as fairly as I could on its bearings. This has been my sole object, as this was my only duty. But, my Lords, it should seem, from what we have lately heard, that another duty may be imposed upon an advocate. My learned friend has told you that, regardful only of his client, an advocate may proceed, regardless of all the world beside, and reckless of the consequences, even though it should be his lot to produce confusion in the country for a season. Such was the text of my learned friend. Your Lordships have heard the speeches founded on it. To me it appears that the duty imposed on my learned friends was to protect and vindicate her Majesty, and refute, if they could, the charges brought against her. In the performance of their task they have considered it to be open to them to cast invectives on all around. Even the King himself was not to be spared; and, modern history exhausted, my learned friends go back to the annals of corrupt Rome, to search for the means of wounding the feelings of royalty; and the Monarch of this country has been insulted by being compared with the most cruel and most blood-thirsty despot of antiquity. Nay, not alone has the Monarch been insulted; even your Lordships have not been spared. Perhaps some excuse may be found for my learned friends, when it is considered how desperate is that cause which it is their duty to support. My Lords, if the Queen were innocent, these invectives, these topics would be irrelevant. Her innocence cannot be established by hurling these envenomed darts around. No, my Lords, innocence, secure in its own purity, stands on a firm base, and requires not the aid of arts like these; it seeks not to inflame; it demands justice, but pants not for revenge. It will be time enough, when innocence is established, to pursue those who have aspersed it. At present, I cannot think that the course taken by my learned friends, is that which it was their duty to prefer. But in his peroration, Mr. Brougham has told your Lordships in the conclusion of his eloquent speech, that the public has pronounced the Queen innocent. My Lords, the public has pronounced no verdict. A part of the public I grant there is, who have pronounced a verdict. There are those who, by the basest, and most insidious means, have attempted to mislead the loyal, the honest, and the good part of the community, by industriously blackening the conduct of all concerned in carrying on these proceedings. They, while the cause of the Queen is in their mouths, have other objects in their hearts, and seek but to stimulate the people to rebellion and revolution. It is painful to reflect, that those who have such objects in view should have met with any encouragement. They will receive no countenance from your Lordships. It is only on the evidence produced before you that your Lordships will found your decision. But you have been told, my lords, in the peroration of my friend, Mr. Brougham, to pause betore you decide; that you stand on a precipice, and that if you give your judgment against the Queen, it will be the last judgment that you will ever pronounce. Nay, you are called upon, as the only means of preserving the honour of the crown and the purity of the altar, at all hazards, and at all risks, whatever the evidence may be, to give a verdict of acquittal, because, forsooth, such, in the opinion of my learned friends, such is the decision to which you ought to come, You, my Lords, are not thus to be worked upon; you are not to be influenced by such attempts at intimidation. I know that I am now addressing persons of high honour, and of unstained reputation, whose decisions have hitherto been reverenced, because they have been founded in justice. You will sustain your exalted character, you best protect the honour of the throne, and the purity of the altar, by coming to a just decision on the evidence before you. On that evidence I rest my case; and if it lead you, as I think it inevitably must, to give a verdict of guilty, you, I am sure, will not want courage to pronounce it; and doing so, my Lords, you will best satisfy your own consciences, and sooner or later, the country." (Speech of the Attorney General, p. 105, 106-114.) will The preposterous absurdity, to characterize it by no harsher terms, of the parallel drawn between the conduct of Nero towards the innocent Octavia and that of our Sovereign towards the Queen, is successfully combatted by the Solicitor-General, whose speech, also, at the head of our paper, taking up the subject in its state of exhaustion, is judiciously occupied with the |