who could lend himself for one moment to the belief, that ministers gave credit to the preamble of the bill.

Mr Brougham's speech being concluded, Mr Denman obtained permission to delay his address to the House till next day. He expressed strongly his sense of the importance of his office-an office which, in the present hour of trial and of difficulty, he prized far more highly than the proudest favours which royalty could confer in the moment of prosperity. The committee had not acted in any degree as a grand jury; they had merely found that there was room for solemn inquiry, but had not pronounced any opinion upon the facts, nor recommended the proceeding by bill. The charge of a degrading intimacy was one too vague to become the object of legislative or judicial investigation. The familiarity and openness of manners, which was generally graceful and engaging, might appear blameable to persons of a reserved and austere character. Anne Boleyn, whose innocence was generally acknowledged, had been remarked by Hume as having a certain gaiety, and even levity of manner, which exposed her to the malice of her enemies. A remarkable instance of familiarity with persons of low station, occurred when the illustrious party was Prince of Wales, during which period a note was once delivered to him, commencing in this way-" Sam Spriggs, of the Cocoa-tree, sends his compliments to his Royal Highness." The Prince, on afterwards meeting with MrSpriggs, -observed to him, "This may be very well between you and me, Sam; but, for God's sake, do not play these tricks with our high fellows; it would never do with Norfolk or Arundel." The learned Counsel then urged the inconsistency of the charges made by ministers with the proposals which

they had offered. The preamble to the bill appeared to him equally irreconcileable to the alleged facts of the case.

He did not wish to treat the subject with levity, yet it appeared to him that they had been rehearsing the School for Scandal-that they had been performing a solemn farce. Had Malvolio really intrigued with his mistress? or had the other servants quarrelled with the steward, and determined to seek revenge? A trial her Majesty had challenged; but she regarded the bill as no trial-as a proceeding calculated only to bewilder and betray, and as to the justice of which the public would have a right to entertain strong suspicions. Mr

Denman referred in the same tone as Mr Brougham, to the disgraceful case of Lord Strafford. When he commenced his address, his royal client had not entered the House, and therefore he now, in her presence, once more appealed to their lordships to avert this public mischief-miscalled a trial. Her Majesty was departing from no principle in making this appeal: she still challenged a trial, but a fair trial; she was not satisfied that her accuser should send sealed bags of papers to the most distinguished of her judges, or that the final sentence should be pronounced by himself. Was this a bill of divorce, or was it not; and was divorce ever granted, except when the complaining party was free from blame? Let their Lordships, then, suppose the case of a young and accomplished woman coming to these shores from a foreign country, with prospects of splendour almost unparalleled; that on her arrival, instead of meeting an affectionate husband, she found an alienated mind: that the solemnities of marriage did not prevent his being still surrounded by mistresses; that the birth of a child, instead of affording a pledge of mutual regard, became the signal

of aggravated insult, and was shortly followed by her expulsion from the husband's roof. That, even then, spies were placed over her to report or to fabricate stories of her conduct. If, after all these circumstances, an ex parte inquiry took place and terminated in a complete acquittal; and, in consequence of that acquittal, she was restored to society and to the embraces of a father by whom she was never deserted; if, subsequently, she had been induced to go abroad, and the same machinations were renewed against her, in the hope that what had failed in England might succeed in Italy, and the charges, which had before been blown to atoms by argument and ridicule, might at length avail, if not to convict, at least to blacken, to degrade, and to destroy; in a case like this, where the husband has thus shewn himself indifferent to the honour and happiness of his wife-where he has abdicated all those duties which alone gave him the rights of a husband-would their lordships listen for one moment to his case? It appeared, that this question might at some distant period lead to a disputed succession. If his Majesty should again marry, and a child, the fruit of that marriage, be born, there might yet remain in moral and religious minds a doubt as to the validity of that marriage, and whether its offspring had a just title to the crown. Mr Denman then referred, in the same tone as his precursor, to certain proceedings in 1809, relative to an illustrious person, the heir-apparent to the throne. So, with regard to the other Royal Dukes of the same illustrious family, the same objection might perhaps be addressed to them, if their conduct for six whole years were to be examined with a view of detecting scandalous freedoms or adulterous intercourse. If by the in

troduction of a measure like that before their lordships, one peer could uncrown the Queen, another peer might uncrown the King; and he would say further, that the public opinion, which, after all, must dispose of crowns, and sceptres, and kingdoms, would receive the same bias with equal facility. It was very remarkable, but their lordships would well remember, that the origin of the French Revolution was marked by calumnies and libels against the French Queen-imputations against that unfortunate woman, which were coupled with slanders and insinuations against all that was pure, and noble, and honourable, in France. Their lordships would recollect that eventful and gloomy period, when the unhallowed hands of desperate men were raised against insulted royalty-a period at which, as had been well observed by an elegant writer (Mr Burke), all the beautiful delicacy of the female character was violated and despised-a period at which that modest sensitiveness, that sacred purity, which impose upon man "all those moral obligations which the heart owns, and which the understanding ratifies, were lost in the licentious profligacy of the day; when it had become a common observation, that " a king was but a man-a queen was but a woman-a woman was but an animal, and that animal not of the highest order." The greatness of the female character consisted in throwing from it, to an immeasurable distance, that species of impertinence and intrusion which would presume to violate, by unwarranted inquiries, the sanctity of domestic privacy; and upon these grounds alone he might rest his only and general defence, if it were necessary, of the Queen, against a measure intended to exclude from the throne her who ought to adorn it—who came

here with every expectation, with every reasonable hope, of sharing it -and who, it was now attempted to be argued, had forfeited-not forfeited, indeed, but had lost-her just claim to it. The learned Counsel then urged the religious, as well as civil character of marriage, on which he was particularly anxious that Dr Lushington should be heard; he represented the hardship which his illustrious client suffered, in the substitution of a bill of pains and penalties, for a judicial proceeding; he protested in her name against the former measure, and he concluded, "I beg to say, my Lords, that whatever may be enacted-whatever may be done by the exertions of any individual, by the perversion of truth, or through the perjury of witnesses-whatever be the consequences which may follow, and whatever she may suffer-I will, for one, never withdraw from her those sentiments of dutiful homage which I owe to her rank, to her situation, to her superior mind, to her great and royal heart; nor, my Lords, will I ever pay to any one who may usurp her Majesty's station, that respect which belongs alone to her whom the laws of God and man have made the Consort of the King, and the Queen of these kingdoms."

The Attorney-General could not help remarking the extraordinary licence taken by the learned Counsel. Instead of arguing strictly on the principle of the bill, they had gone into statements of facts, which, although they were all introduced into this part of the case as facts, he must contend were not yet founded on the evidence before their lordships; by assumptions, gratuitously made; and by calumnies -(an expression by which he meant not the slightest disrespect to his learned friends, but he must repeat it) -by calumnies, unsupported, at pre

sent, by any thing but their own assertion. They had been reasoned upon, however, as if certain and indisputable; and the passions and feelings of their lordships had been worked upon accordingly by speeches of the most extraordinary eloquence, the impressions of which he implored them to efface from their minds. The simple dry question before them was, whether the bill was sustainable upon principle. The learned Counsel then stated the grounds on which an impeachment could not lie, and consequently a legislative proceeding was necessary. If he had not known it to be the opinion of others, in whose legal judgment he could confide, that the charge contained in the preamble of this bill did not amount to high treason-an opinion which fortunately was now formally sanctioned by the highest authorities that could be referred to, he would not have presumed to stand at their lordships' bar as the advocate of the present course of proceeding. That uncertainty was now removed, and he boldly challenged his learned friends to the argument, and defied them to produce a single case in support of their assertion, that the facts alleged in the preamble of this bill would bear out an impeachment, and that, consequently, an impeachment was the course that ought to have been adopted. The learned Counsel reprobated the manner in which the witnesses had been treated, as suborned, perjured spies, calumniators, and traducers. This was tampering with their lordships' feelings, and treating the subject quite unfairly at a time when they had not heard a single deposition. His learned friends had much abused the liberty they had obtained, of arguing now against the principle of the bill. How should he be arraigned if he so far forgot himself as to expatiate on the

enormities of the charge contained in the preamble of this bill against a person of the high rank of Queen, then indeed a Princess, but niece to the late King of Prussia, and next in rank to the Queen of England? How should he be arraigned by his learned friends, if he in the present stage were to enlarge on the evidence about to be produced? The pain of the task would be great enough, God knew, when the necessity arrived. The present bill was no more an ex post facto law, than every divorce bill was. Her Majesty would be deprived of no means of defence as Queen, which she would have enjoyed as Princess of Wales. She courted inquiry; and the present bill afforded the means of as complete and fair inquiry, as either impeachment or any other measure would have done. His mind was in no degree affected by the declamatory topics in which the other side had indulged. He felt that he was addressing a grave assembly, composed of persons of the highest rank, attainments, and honour, in the country; and he knew that on such an occasion appeals to the passions, however they might excite admiration for the advocate at the bar, would ultimately be of no effect. Their lordships were not to be made, either by entreaty, by hints, or by menaces, to swerve from the straight-forward path of duty. He was aware that this, as it had been called by his learned friend Mr Denman, was a tremendous inquiry: he knew that the peace of the country might be affected by it; but he knew also that clamour would have no effect on their lordships' minds. He was not appalled; he did not fear for the future: he had such confidence in the good sense of the country, that he felt assured, when the facts were before them which had hitherto been concealed, and in ignorance of which their minds had artfully been wrought

on, they would see the necessity and the propriety of the course that had been resorted to. The question was a momentous one, affecting not only the parties immediately concerned, but the dignity and honour of the country itself. "If innocent, however," continued the learned gentleman, "the party accused need not fear your lordships' judgment. If guilty, I am sure that nothing can be stated which will induce you to swerve from the path of duty; but that, fearless of popular clamour, you will put your hands to your hearts, and decide conscientiously and justly. By your lordships' decision you will satisfy the public, that while the meanest subject in the realm is protected by innocence, the highest subject cannot offend with impunity."

The Solicitor-General equally condemned the course followed by the gentlemen on the other side. Instead of temperately discussing a grave, dry, constitutional question, they had indulged in personal invective, and the most unfounded aspersions. The question appeared to him very simple. By a technical distinction of law, the Queen Consort, committing adultery with a foreigner abroad, could not be brought in as guilty of high treason. Yet, if the Queen Consort was guilty of a crime but one shade removed from the highest crime known to the law-of the deepest dye either in a religious, a moral, or a civil point of view-was a person so regardless of what she owed to the country, to the crown, and to her rank, to sit on the throne by the side of the monarch of these realms? Could he address an assembly of men of honour, stating that such scandalous conduct had taken place, and at the same time affirm that the person who had been guilty of it was worthy to remain upon the throne of England? The pains and penalties attached to

this bill, were no greater than in any common case of divorce; and was the King to have less means of redress than the humblest individual? It appeared to him that there could be no necessity so great as that which called for the present inquiry; the necessity of not allowing such a series of conduct as was here charged to pass with impunity, and the individual so demeaning herself to sit on the throne of these realms. He agreed, indeed, that silence upon this subject could hardly be purchased at so dear a price: but the moment the Queen challenged inquiry, the moment she asserted her innocence, the moment she set her foot in the country, and claimed her rank and privileges as Queen Consort, it became impossible to shun this dreadful proceeding. Bills of pains and penalties had been as old as the constitution, and were essential to it. The case of Strafford was wholly inapplicable; the injustice of it consisted in the Houses having been overawed by violence and clamour out of doors. It had been said, who was the complaining party? True it was, that the King was not here the complaining party; it did not suit his high character and station to come before this court as the complaining party; but, knowing the facts of the case, he pursued the course befitting his dignified and princely capacity; he ordered the papers to be laid before the parliament, that it might deal with the case as to its wisdom might seem meet. Thus he became a consenting, though not a complaining, party. It had been the misfortune of these proceedings, from the commencement, and through every stage, that collateral topics, calculated to excite prejudice, and to inflame the passions of the multitude-to create distraction in the country, and to shake the very foundations of the monarchy, had been introduced by the profes

sional and unprofessional advisers of the Queen. In touching on recrimination, his learned friends had introduced a topic, from which their minds must have revolted, and which they could not but know to be inapplicable. They had even advanced the extraordinary proposition, that there was no difference between adultery committed by a man and a woman. But why was this topic introduced? For a most strange and unjustifiable purpose. He should have thought that the common feeling of delicacy and humanity, which he knew pervaded the bosoms of his learned friends, would have compelled abstinence at least on this point. It was an unwarrantable, because an unnecessary, attack upon an illustrious personage, whose conduct had been twice dragged before the House. His great talents and popularity throughout the country might at all times, but more particularly at the present moment, have shielded him from so cruel and so wanton an assault. Knowing from what quarter it proceeded, it filled him with surprise and amazement. It had been insinuated that her Majesty had been encouraged to go abroad, that she might fall a victim to a foul conspiracy. Was this meant as a charge against ministers? Was it possible to suppose that such detestable wickedness could enter into the minds of the basest in so− ciety, much less into the minds of men refined by education, polished by intercourse with the highest classes, and raised by their talents to the highest functions of the state? He would no longer follow the wandering course of his learned friends, but would only remind the House, that the question before them simply related to the mode of proceeding, and he trusted they would find no reason for altering that which they had deliberately adopted.

Mr Brougham replied at some