You can not minister to a mind diseased.3 You can not redress a man who is wronged beIf money can not yond the possibility of redress: the wrong, the award law has no means of restoring to ery reason, to be him what he has lost. God him

fully repair the

ought, for this

most ample.

affections were the solace of his life; that for nothing the world could bestow ir. the shape of riches or honors would he have bartered one moment's comfort in the bosom of his family, he shows you a wrong that no money can compensate. Nevertheless, if the injury is only mensurable in money, and if you are sworn to make upon your oaths a pecuniary compensation, though I can conceive that the damages when given to the extent of the declaration, and you can give no more, may fall short of what your consciences would have dictated, yet I am utterly at a loss to comprehend upon what principle they can be lessened. But then comes the defendant's ecunsel, and says, "It is true that the injury can not be compensated by the sum which the plaintiff has demanded; but you will consider the miseries my client must suffer, if you make him the object of a severe verdict. You must, therefore, regard him with compassion; though I am ready to admit the plaintiff is to be compensated for the injury he has received.

without positive

Here, then, Lord Kenyon's doctrine deserves consideration. "He who will miti- Damages not to gate damages below the fair esti- be mitigated mate of the wrong which he has cause shown by committed, must do it upon some principle which the policy of the law will support."

the defendant.

self, as he has constituted human nature, has no means of alleviating such an injury as the one I have brought before you. While the sensibilities, affections, and feelings he has given to man remain, it is impossible to heal a wound which strikes so deep into the soul. When you have given to a plaintiff, in damages, all that figures can number, it is as nothing; he goes away hanging down his head in sorrow, accompanied by his wretched family, dispirited and dejected. Nevertheless, the law has given a civil action for adultery, and, strange to say, it has given nothing else. The law commands that the injury shall be compensated (as far as it is practicable) IN MONEY, because courts of Civil Justice have no other means of compensation THAN money; and the only question, therefore, and which you upon your oaths are to decide, is this: has the plaintiff sustained an injury up to the extent which he has complained of? Will twenty thousand pounds place him in the same condition of comfort and happiness that he enjoyed before the adultery, and which the adulterer has deprived him of? You know that it will not. Ask your own hearts the question, and you will receive the same answer. I should be glad to know, then, upon what principle, as it regards the private justice, which the plaintiff has a right to, or upon what principle, as the example of that justice affects the public and the remotest generations of mankind, you can reduce this demand even in a single farthing. This is a doctrine which has been frequently countenanced by the noble and learned Lord Kenyon Lord [Lord Kenyon] who lately preof damages. sided in the Court of King's Bench; but his Lordship's reasoning on the subject has been much misunderstood, and frequently misrepresented. The noble Lord is supposed to have said, that although a plaintiff may not have sustained an injury by adultery to a given amount, yet that large damages, for the sake of public example, should be given. He never said any such thing. He said that which law and morals dictated to him, and which will support his reputation as long as law and morals have a footing in the world. He said that every plaintiff had a right to recover damages up to the extent of the injury he had received, and that public example stood in the way of showing favor to an adulterer, by reducing the damages below the sum which the jury would otherwise consider as the lowest compensation for the wrong. If the plaintiff shows you that he was a most affection-ous commerce, and opposes those inclinations ate husband; that his parental and conjugal

Viewn of

as to amount

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stiffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

Macbeth, Act v., Sc. 3.

Let me, then, examine, whether the defendant is in a situation which entitles him to No such cruse have the damages against him miti- in this case. gated, when private justice to the injured party calls upon you to give them TO THE UTMOST FARTHING. The question will be, on what prin ciple of mitigation he can stand before you. I had occasion, not a great while ago, to remark to a jury, that the wholesome institutions of the civilized world came seasonably in aid of the dispensations of Providence for our well-being in the world. If I were to ask, what it is that prevents the prevalence of the crime of incest, by taking away those otherwise natural impulses, from the promiscuous gratification of which we should become like the beasts of the field, and lose all the intellectual endearments which are at once the pride and the happiness of man? What is it that renders our houses On the contrary, pure and our families innocent? It the severest is that, by the wise institutions of all ry to protect so civilized nations, there is placed a the closest inti kind of guard against the human macy. passions, in that sense of impropriety and dishon. or, which the law has raised up, and impressed with almost the force of a second nature. This wise and politic restraint beats down, by the habits of the mind, even a propensity to incestu

guards necessa

ciety in cases of

which nature, for wise purposes, has implanted in our breasts at the approach of the other sex. It holds the mind in chains against the seductions of beauty. It is a moral feeling in perpetual opposition to human infirmity. It is like an angel from heaven placed to guard us from propensities which are evil. It is that warning voice, gentlemen, which enables you to embrace

your daughter, however lovely, without feeling | such reflections, he had innumerable difficulties that you are of a different sex. It is that which and obstacles to contend with. He could not enables you, in the same manner, to live familiarly with your nearest female relations, with out those desires which are natural to man.

to the case of

but hear, in the first refusals of this unhappy lady, every thing to awaken conscience, and even to excite horror. In the arguments he must have employed to seduce her from her duty, he could not but recollect and willfully trample upon his own.

He was a year engaged in the pursuit; he resorted repeatedly to his shameful purpose, and advanced to it at such intervals of time and distance, as entitle me to say, that he determined in cold blood to enjoy a future and momentary gratification, at the expense of every

Next to the tie of blood (if not, indeed, before Application of it) is the sacred and spontaneous rethe principle lation of friendship. The man who friendship. comes under the roof of a married friend, ought to be under the dominion of the same moral restraint; and, thank God, generally is so, from the operation of the causes which I have described. Though not insensible to the charms of female beauty, he receives its impres-principle of honor which is held sacred among sions under an habitual reserve, which honor imposes. Hope is the parent of desire, and honor tells him he must not hope. Loose thoughts may arise, but they are rebuked and dissipated: "Evil into the mind of God or man

Abuse of friendship by the defendant.

gentlemen, even where no laws interpose their obligations or restraints.

Bociety in such

I call upon you, therefore, gentlemen of the jury, to consider well this case-for A jury the chief it is your office to keep human life vindicators of in tone; your verdict must decide cases. whether such a case can be indulgently considered, without tearing asunder the bonds which unite society together.

instance.

It is

May come and go, so unapproved, and leave No spot or blame behind."-Milton. Gentlemen, I trouble you with these reflections, that you may be able properly to appreciate the guilt of the defendant, and to show Gentlemen, I am not preaching a religion you, that you are not in a case where large al- which men can scarcely practice. I Aggravations lowances are to be made for the ordinary infirmi-am not affecting a severity of morals in the present ties of our imperfect natures. When a man beyond the standard of those whom I does wrong in the heat of sudden passion-as, am accustomed to respect, and with whom I asso for instance, when, upon receiving an affront, he ciate in common life. I am not making a stalkrushes inte immediate violence, even to the dep-ing-horse of adultery, to excite exaggerated senrivation of life, the humanity of the law classes timent. This is not the case of a gentleman his offense among the lower degrees of homi- meeting a handsome woman in a public street or cide; it supposes the crime to have been com- in a place of public amusement; where, finding mitted before the mind had time to parley with the coast clear for his addresses, without interitself. But is the criminal act of such a person, ruption from those who should interrupt, he finds however disastrous may be the conse- himself engaged (probably the successor of anquence, to be compared with that of other) in a vain and transitory intrigue. the defendant? Invited into the house not the case of him who, night after night, falls of a friend-received with the open arms of af- in with the wife of another, to whom he is a fection, as if the same parents had given them stranger, in the boxes of a theater, or other rebirth and bred them-in THIS situation, this most sorts of pleasure, inviting admirers by indecent monstrous and wicked defendant deliberately dress and deportment, unattended by any thing perpetrated his crime; and, shocking to relate, which bespeaks the affectionate wife and mother not only continued the appearances of friendship of many children. Such connections may be of after he had violated its most sacred obligations, evil example; but I am not here to reform pubbut continued them as a cloak to the barbarous lic manners, but to demand private justice. It is repetitions of his offense-writing letters of re- impossible to assimilate the sort of cases I have gard, while, perhaps, he was the father of the alluded to, which ever will be occasionally oclast child, whom his injured friend and compan- curring, with this atrocious invasion of household ion was embracing and cherishing as his own! peace-this portentous disregard of every thing What protection can such conduct possibly re- held sacred among men, good or evil. Nothing, ceive from the humane consideration of the law indeed, can be more affecting than even to be for sudden and violent passions? A passion for called upon to state the evidence I must bring a woman is progressive; it does not, like anger, before you. I can scarcely pronounce to you gain an uncontrolled ascendency in a moment, that the victim of the defendant's lust was the nor is a modest matron to be seduced in a day. mother of nine children, seven of them females Such a crime can not, therefore, be comraitted and infants, unconscious of their unhappy condiunder the resistless dominion of sudden infirmi- tion, deprived of their natural guardian, separaty; it must be deliberately, willfully, and wickedly ted from her forever, and entering the world with committed. The defendant could not possibly a dark cloud hanging over them. But it is not have incurred the guilt of this adultery without in the descending line alone that the happiness often passing through his mind (for he had the of this worthy family is invaded. It hurts me to education and principles of a gentleman) the call before you the venerable progenitor of both very topics I have been insisting upon before you the father and the children, who has risen by exfor his condemnation. Instead of being sudden-traordinary learning and piety to his eminent rank v impelled toward mischief, without leisure for in the Church; and who, instead of receiving,

Without parallel

such offenses.

Mr. Erskine's

exertions to
a criminal or

have this made

fense.

unmixed and undisturbed, the best consolation | Why does he come here for money? Thank God, of age, in counting up the number of his de- gentlemen, IT IS NOT MY FAULT. I scendants, carrying down the name and honor of take honor to myself, that I was one his house to future times, may be forced to turn of those who endeavored to put an end aside his face from some of them that bring to his to this species of action, by the adopremembrance the wrongs which now oppress tion of a more salutary course of proceeding him, and which it is his duty to forget, because I take honor to myself, that I was one of those it is his, otherwise impossible, duty to forgive who supported in Parliament the adoption of a them. law to pursue such outrages with the terrors of criminal justice. I thought then, and I shall always think, that every act malum in se directly injurious to an individual, and most pernicious in its consequences to society, should be considered to be a misdemeanor. Indeed, I know of no other definition of the term. The Legislature, how ever, thought otherwise, and I bow to its decision; but the business of this day may produce some changes of opinion on the subject. I never meant that every adultery was to be similarly considered. Undoubtedly, there are cases where it is comparatively venial, and judges would not overlook the distinctions. I am not a pretender to any extraordinary purity. My severity is confined to cases in which there can be but one sentiment among men of honor, as to the offense, though they may differ in the mode and measure of its correction.

Gentlemen, if I make out this case by evi1: one almost dence (and if I do not, forget every in the history of thing you have heard, and reproach me for having abused your honest feelings), I have established a claim for damages that has no parallel in the annals of fashionable | adultery. It is rather like the entrance of Sin and Death into this lower world. The undone pair were living like our first parents in Paradise, till this demon saw and envied their happy condition. Like them, they were in a moment cast down from the pinnacle of human happiness into the very lowest abyss of sorrow and despair. In one point, indeed, the resemblance does not hold, which, while it aggravates the crime, redoubles the sense of suffering. It was not from an enemy, but from a friend, that this evil proceeded. I have just had put into my hand a quotation from the Psalms upon this subject, full of that unaffected simplicity which so strikingly characterizes the sublime and sacred poet: "It is not an open enemy that hath done me this dishonor, for then I could have borne it.

66

Neither was it mine adversary that did magnify himself against me; for then, peradventure, I would have hid myself from him.

"But it was even thou, my companion, my guide, mine own familiar friend."

This is not the language of counsel, but the inspired language of truth. I ask you solemnly, upon your honors and your oaths, if you would exchange the plaintiff's former situation for his present, for a hundred times the compensation he requires at your hands. I am addressing myself to affectionate husbands and to the fathers of beloved children. Suppose I were to say to you, There is twenty thousand pounds for you: embrace your wife for the last time, and the child that leans upon her bosom and smiles upon you -retire from your house, and make way for the adaherer-wander about an object for the hand o scorn to point its slow and moving finger atthink no more of the happiness and tranquillity of your former state-I have destroyed them forever. But never mind-don't make yourself uneasy-here is a draft upon my banker, it will be paid at sight-there is no better man in the city. I can see you think I am mocking you, gentlemen, and well you may; but it is the very pith und marrow of this cause. It is impossible to put the argument in mitigation of damages in plain English, without talking such a language, as appears little better than an insult to your understandings, dress it up as you will.

But it may be asked-if no money can be an adequate, or, indeed, any compensation, why is Mr. Markham a plaintiff 'n a CIVIL ACTION?

cases of this

It is this difference, of sentiment, gentlemen, that I am alone afraid of. I fear you Dangerous may think there is a sort of limitation consequences of m mitigating in verdicts, and that you may look to damages in precedents for the amount of damages, kind. though you can find no precedent for the magni tude of the crime; but you might as well abolish the action altogether, as lay down a principle which limits the consequences of adultery to what it may be convenient for the adulterer to pay. By the adoption of such a principle, or by any mitigation of severity, arising even from an insufficient reprobation of it, you unbar the sanctuary of domestic happiness, and establish a sort of license for debauchery, to be sued out like other licenses, at its price. A man has only to put money into his pocket, according to his degree and fortune, and he may then debauch the wife or daughter of his best friend, at the expense he chooses to go to. He has only to say to himself, what Iago says to Roderigo in the play, Pat money in thy purse-go to-put money in thy

purse.

Persons of immense fortunes might, in this way, deprive the best men in the country of their domestic satisfactions, with what to them might be considered as impunity. The most abandoned profligate might say to himself, or to other profligates, "I have suffered judgment by default-let them send down their deputy-sheriff to the King's Arms Tavern; I shall be concealed from the eye of the public-I have drawn upon my banker for the utmost damages, and I have as much more to spare to-morrow, if I can find another woman whom I would choose to enjoy at such a price." In this manner I have seen a rich delinquent, too

Othello, Act i., Scene 3.

lightly fined by courts of criminal justice, throw | tice of Christianity shall overspread the face of down his bank-notes to the officers, and retire the earth. with a deportment, not of contrition, but contempt.

MR. CURRAN.

JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN was born at Newmarket, an obscure village in the north west corner of the county of Cork, Ireland, on the 24th of July, 1750. The family was in low circumstances, his father being seneschal, or collector of rents, to a gentleman of small property in the neighborhood. He was a man, however, of vigorous intellect, and acquirements above his station; while his wife was distinguished for that bold, irregular strength of mind, that exuberance of imagination and warmth of feeling, which were so strikingly manifested in the character of her favorite son.

The peculiar position of his father brought the boy, from early life, into contact with persons of every class, both high and low; and he thus gained that perfect knowledge of the mind and heart of his countrymen, and that kindling sympathy with their feelings, which gave him more power over an Irish jury than any other man ever possessed. Though sent early to school, his chief delight was in societyin fun, frolic, mimicry, and wild adventure. The country fairs, which were frequent in his native village, were his especial delight; and, as he moved in the crowded streets, among the cattle and the pigs, the horse-dealers and frieze-dealers, the matchmakers and the peddlers, he had his full share of the life, and sport, and contention of the scene. He was a regular attendant on dances and wakes; and dwelt with the deepest interest on the old traditions about the unfinished palace of Kanturk, in the neighborhood, or listened to the stories concerning the rapparees of King Will. 'am's wars, or to "the strains of the piper as he blew the wild notes to which Alister M'Donnel marched to battle at Knocknanois, and the wilder ones in which the women mourned over his corse." Every thing conspired from his earliest years to give him freedom and versatility of mind; to call forth the keenest sagacity as to chaincter and motives; to produce a quick sense of the ridiculous; to cherish that passionate strength of feeling which expressed itself equally in tears and laughter, to make him, at once, of reality and imagination "all compact."

When he was about fourteen years old, as he was rolling marbles one morning, and playing his tricks in the ball-alley, he attracted the notice of an elderly gentleman who was passing by. It was the Rev. Mr. Boyse, a clergyman of the Church of England, who held the rectorship of the parish. The family of Curran were attondants on his ministry, and he had heard much of the brightness and promise of the boy. He invited him to his house, and was so much pleased with his frank and hearty conversation, that he offered at once to instruct him in the classics, with a view to his entering Trinity College, Dublin. Young Curran was ready for any thing that could gratify his curiosity. He removed to the Rectory; he devoted himself to study, though with occasional outbreaks of his love of fun and frolic; he made such proficiency that, within three years, he fairly outran his patron's ability to teach him; he was then removed by Mr. Boyse to a school at Middleton, and supported partly at his expense; and was prepared for the University in 1769, at the age of nineteen. Here he studied the classics especially, with great ardor, perfecting himself so fully both in the Latin and Greek languages, that he could read them with ease and pleasure throughout life. His exertions were rewarded by honors and emoluments which very nearly provided for his support while in college; and he carried with him into life an enthusiasm for these studies which never subsided, amid all the multiplied cares of business and politics For a long time he read Homer once every year;'

DDD