possession is the natural result, and the mental faculties are then wielded with judicious facility.

Whether a verdict be obtained by puzzling, or confounding an ignorant or timid witness, so as to involve him in apparent contradiction, and then discrediting his testimony--Whether by hard swearing to an alibi, or by perjury of another description, or by any other disgraceful means; some men of the profession consider a verdict as a triumph, and proclaim, in joyous exclamation, victoria, victoria! But, Sir, is the triumph of the Barrister over private feelings wounded, and public justice perverted, matter of exultation? Is it not to be compared to the triumph of the savage, glorying in the murderous dexterity with which he has wielded his tomahawk and scalping knife? No profession Sir, I admit, requires greater strength and firmness of principle than that of the advocate, not does any character display those qualities in brighter lustre; but the indiscriminate habit of defending, right and wrong, has a tendency to break down the natural boundaries set up between them in the human mind. By constantly striving to deceive others, men may deceive them. selves, and become the dupes of their own sophistry. Of all situations in the profession, the most dangerous is that of a Barrister practising principally in the Criminal Courts of Judicature. Vice and depravity become so familiar as insensibly to lose their horrors. He who is in the daily habit of endeavouring to screen from punishment the man whom he knows to be guilty, goes but one step further in endeavouring to weave his web around and bring to punishment, the man whom he knows to be innocent, and the mind is unhappily too ingenious in suggesting to itself plausible vin dications of a conduct to which it is impelled by those powerful incentives, the love of money, and the love of fame, or to use the more energetic lan guage of the poet,

"Auri sacra fames, laudumque immensa cupido."

But, Sir, to wave these reflections into which I have insensibly di gressed, and resume my narrative. Mr. Fullarton, in bringing forward one of his charges against his colleague, with that penetration which marks his character, selected you as a fit ally for his purpose, nor, as I am about to shew, has he been disappointed in his warmest expectations.

In opening the Indictment of Rex v. Colonel Picton, you impudently asserted, "That he abused the situation to which he was raised, and disgraced the country to which he belonged, by inflicting torture on one of his Majesty's subjects, without the least motive but to gratify a tyrannical disposition to oppress a defenceless and unfortunate victim of his cruelty." After such an exordium, will it be credited, that no such disposition, or temper was, or could be proved? That the evidence taken under the Mandamus sent to Trinidad directly and flatly contradicted the gross and illiberal assertion, and that the Lord Chief Justice declared from the Bench, that any improper or malicious motive was not even pretended." Give me leave to ask you, Sir, by what authority you take upon yourself to stand up in a Court of Justice (which ought to be the temple of truth), and thus vilify an officer of high rank and long-tried character in the service of his country? By some legal casuistry you may perhaps reconcile it to your feelings, Mr. Garrow, but God be thanked, the mem bers of the British Bar are governed by a more dignified sense of the honour of their profession, than either to approve, or imitate your example.

Not

Net content with the most unbridled licentiousness of declamation, from the beginning to the end of this trial, you still further introduced a picture of Louisa Calderon-the chaste and virtuous protegée of your client, in distorted attitude and affected agony. Was this exhibition, Mr. Garrow, the suggestion of your own fertile imagination, or did you get the sketch from the neighbourhood of Hounslow, or Red Lion-square? For shame! for shame! The indecency and novelty of the trick have not escaped public animadversion. No man dares deny the fact, and no one is shameless enough to defend it. It is stigmatized by every person of sense and character, as an attempt to sully the purity of a tribunal, to which every Englishman looks with reverence. In one of the public prints you were more than once noticed, but you were there only tickled with the light feather of gentle raillery, when you merited most richly the wire lash of indignant satire *. The ancients pictured the Goddess of Justice with a bandage over her eyes, to shew by a just and beautiful allegory, that she ought not to be influenced by external objects. You, Sir, with impious hands, unblushingly in the face of your fellow-citizens, have torn off this sacred veil, with a view to inflame the passions of your audience, instead of appealing to their understandings. An abuse of this Bagrant nature required (from the high quarter at which it aimed, and has wounded), instant correction. "One precedent creates another-they soon accumulate, and constitute law. What yesterday was fact, to-day is doctrine. Examples are supposed to justify the most dangerous measures, and where they do not exactly suit, the defect is supplied by analogy +." The mind of every man who sets a proper value on that pure and upright administration of justice with which Great Britain, above all other nations, hitherto has been blessed, revolts at seeing it thus laboured to be debased, and the righteous supremacy of reason and of eloquence, in danger of being usurped by legerdemain trick, and pantomimic spectacle.

Is it that the manners of Mr. Fullarton are so peculiarly insinuating, Mr. Garrow, or the purse of the Treasury Solicitor so heavy; or are there other considerations connected or united with this cause, which have induced you thus to blend the character of the Advocate with that of the partizan? I know Mr. F.'s connexions with men now in his Majesty's Councils. 1 know, too, that you are ardent to acquire political, as well as legal fame. But believe me, Sir, those wings which support your flight through the Old Bailey and the other Courts of Criminal Judicature, will not sustain your weight at St. James's and St. Stephen's Chapel, as indeed you may have been convinced by your late most inauspicious debut as a parliamentary orator, "breaking solemn leagues and covenants which you had made with yourself (doubtless signed, sealed and delivered, being duly stamped) to remain silent," and breaking also the rules of senatorial decorum by your personal aggression against a learned Civilian,

* I must except Colonel Draper's wholesome advice, pointed ridicule, and spirited sarcasms. They will, I trust, have some effect in checking, what our great bard calls:

the rattling tongue. Of seucy and audacious impudence."

for

for the latter of which you received such spirited and gentlemanly chastisement from the lips of Mr. Windham. Every politician, let me inform you, Sir, must submit to the discipline of the school of Pythagoras, and how, with that cacothes loquendi which could not be restrained, even for a few hours, you will ever be able to go through the necessary probation, I know not. Learn also, Sir, to be more reserved in your commu. nications upon other points. Hand about, Sir, no more copies of letters preceding your official appointment as Attorney General to the Prince of Wales. Silence is most becoming under such circumstances, and more prudent too, for Mr. Garrow may it not be alleged, with apparent, if not real truth, that your professional honours were the general retainer for your vote and interest given by one party, and your seat in Parliament the inviting boon, and expected sacrifice from another party?

From your conduct, Sir, in every former stage of the proceedings against Colonel Picton, I augur no relaxation of your efforts. Perhaps this epistle may serve to augment them. But depend upon it I shall not lose sight of you, nor diminish my labours upon every fresh occurrence. I am now employed in etching some designs with my pencil, not for the meridian of a law court, but for the instruction and amusement of the cu rious multitude, and have actually completed a sketch of a barrister crossexamining a witness, in which the self-confidence and audacity of the first, forms a fine contrast with the modest deportment of the latter. I have also a finished portrait of a witness who had been examined in a cause, and who is now the melancholy tenant of an asylum for lunatics. An allegorical piece, representing a barrister with a silk gown, tearing off the bandage from the eyes of justice, and sharpening her sword, is in considerable progression. To this I am adding a humourous picture of a courtier making a bow to a prime minister for a vacant borough, while he thrusts his left hand behind him to receive an appointment from the Opposition. This last idea is not original I must allow. It was suggested to me by that scene in the Confederacy, where Dick kneels to his mother for her blessing, and at the same time pockets her diamond necklace. In your late exhibitions, Sir, you burst upon the public in such a blaze of excellence, that many who give you credit for extraordinary versatility of talent, doubt whether you can, support your fame. The bird of Jove, they say, is not always on the wing. I, however, entertain higher ideas of the sublimity of your flights, and the fertility of your genius, and am impatient to witness the future productions of your art. Whatever they may be, they will, I am confident, demonstrate the mayter. The choice of subjects is yours, the task of recording their merits shall be mine. VALERIUS.

THE FETE AT BUSHY PARK.

OUR sense of loyalty, and the respect which it leads us to entertain for every one descended from as virtuous a Monarch as ever adorned a Throne, who is truly the pattern, as well as the guardian, of the relįgious and moral principles of his subjects, will ever incline us to forbear all comment upon the conduct of any of the Royal Family, unless where a superior duty renders such forbearance criminal. The accounts blazoned in the

vehicles

vehicles of fashionable intelligence, which has become almost synonimous of late, with fashionable vices, of a late festival at Bushy, excited in our minds a great degree of indignation, against the retailers of news, who appeared to us to have libelled, in them, some of the first characters in the kingdom. On this subject we have received the following Letter from a Correspondent, whose feelings on the occasion appear to have been in perfect consonance with our own.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ANTI-JACOBIN REVIEW.

SIR,

I read an account in two of the public papers of last Saturday, viz. the Courier and the Globe, which filled me with astonishment, and excited my utmost indignation, as one of the most outrageous violations of decency that I ever met with; and my surprize is still increased, mingled with dismay, that no public notice has been taken of it in any subsequent papers. I mean the account of the public Fête given at Bushy Park on the Duke of Clarence's Birth-day. I do not want to interfere with the private connexion between His Royal Highness and Mrs. Jordan: let it not be obtruded on the public for observation. But is it possible-can it be true that at that public entertainment, so public that the Bow-street officers were engaged to take care of the populace--can it be possible that the Prince of Wales, the Heir Apparent to the Crown of these dominions, should lead by the hand Mrs. Jordan-the actress-the woman formerly notoriously kept by the Manager of a Play-house, &c. &c. &c. to the head of the table; then seat himself at her right hand-the Duke of York at her left-the rest of the Royal Dukes next in order-those Royal Personages to whom Parliament has lately made a large increased allowance to enable them to support their proper state and dignity; next to them the Lord High Chancellor of England the Keeper of the King's conscience, the public offi cial guardian of the morals of the people; next again Mr. Baron Hotham, another dignitary of the laws of the country, and HIS LADY; at the same table the Attorney General; the Earl of Athlone, his COUNTESS and their DAUGHTER; I say, is it possible that these several persons could so far fose all sense of decency, as to give their public sanction and countenance, by personally assisting at these public orgies? For God's sake, for the country's sake, Mr. Editor, raise your voice against such proceedings; for if such things are suffered to pass without notice, and without censure, must it not be an obvious sign that we are given over by Providence to our own destruction, to be next swept away as a nation by the present diabolical scourge of Europe? Rather, by declaring a public abhorrence of such proceedings, let the infamy rest with the perpetrators individually, and the punishment ultimately fall on their own heads.

Trusting to your public spirit, and your experienced courage in the cause of religion, and your support of the laws of your country, I remain, Sir, your very humble setvant,

MERCURIAS RUSTICUS.

28th August, 1806. We feel just as much indignation as our Correspondent; but we must persist in believing the whole account to be a fabrication; for we will not

admit

admit the moral possibility of such conduct in persons who are bound, by every bond of duty, and by every motive of interest, to set an example to the world. If our women were so far to forget what is due to them. selves, what is due to their children, and what is due to society, as indiscriminately to associate with the virtuous and the vicious, with the good and the profligate, with persons of character and persons without character, they would become objects of exccration to all well formed minds, as they would be instruments of mischief more destructive in its effects, and more extensive in its operation, than any other to which human society is exposed. It may be deemed ludicrous to refer fashionable women to their Testament; yet, fashionable or unfashionable, whether they refer to it or not, it will be found to contain a compendious summary of their duties, as Christians; and to specify the only conditions on which they can expect to enter the kingdom of heaven! In comparison with this knowledge, of what little importance is it to the highest among them, whether they herd with Princes, or with peasants! Our Correspondent's Letter induced us to refer to the different papers; the first on which we cast our eye was Mr. Cobbett's Weekly Political Register for September 6, whence we extract the following article:

"The Country, to be saved, must have warm advocates and passion, ate defenders, which a heavy, discontented acquiescence never can produce. What a base and foolish thing it is for any consolidated body of authority to say, or to act as if it said, I will put my trust, not in mine own virtue, but in your patience; I will indulge in effeminacy, in indolence, in corruption; I will give way to all my perverse and vicious humours, because you cannot punish me without the hazard of ruining yourselves.'-BURKE'S WORKS, vol. vii. p. 364."

"GRANTS TO THE ROYAL FAMILY.--The large grants of public money made by the Whig ministry, just at the close of the last session of parliament, were by many persons, and by myself amongst others, regarded as being totally unnecessary, seeing that the allowances to the several branches were already so ample. Colonel Wood has the merit (a merit that will, ere long, be distinguished) of having opposed these grants; and, though his opposition proved ineffectual for the time, it encourages us to hope, that, when the House shall again be full, there will be some few members, at least found to endeavour to cause a revision of this measure, which, I will venture to say, has given a greater shock to men's feelings than any one that has been adopted for many years. But, at any rate, since the money has been granted, it must be the wish of every good subject to see it judiciously expended; to see it, agreeably to the declarations of the ministers, employed in supporting the dignity' of the seve ral persons on whom it has been bestowed; and, under the influence of this wish, what must have been the public feeling at reading the follow. ing account, ostentatiously published, in all the London newspapers of the 23d ultimo, under the title of Duke of Clarence's Birth-day? To be precise, however, I shall, previous to my inserting the account, just state that I copy it from the Courier newspaper of the day here mentioned.

The Duke of Clarence's birth-day was celebrated with much splendour in Bushy Park, on Thursday. The grand hall was entirely new fitted up, with bronze pilasters, and various marble imitations; the celling very correctly