: his preference. You shall find most satisfactorily, that she was without stain or imputation; an aid and a blessing to her parents, and an example to her younger sisters, who looked up to her for instruction. She took a pleasure in assisting in the industry of their home and it was at a neighbouring market, where she went to dispose of the little produce of that industry, that she unhappily attracted the notice of the defendant. Indeed, such a situation was not without its interest,-a young female, in the bloom of her attractions, exerting her faculties in a parent's service, is an object lovely in theey e of God, and, one would suppose, estimable in the eye of mankind. Far different, however, were the sensations which she excited in the defendant. He saw her arrayed, as he confesses, in charms that enchanted him; but her youth, her beauty, the smile of her innocence, and the piety of her toil, but inflamed a brutal and licentious lust, that should have blushed itself away in such a presence. What cared he for the consequences of his gratification ?-There was gratification?—There "No honour, no relenting ruth, To paint the parents fondling o'er their child, Then show the ruin'd maid, and her distraction wild! What thought he of the home he was to desolate ? What thought he of the happiness he was to plunder? His sensual rapine paused not to contemplate the speaking picture of the cottage-ruin, the blighted hope, the broken heart, the parent's agony, and, last and most withering in the woful group, the wretched victim herself starving on the sin of a promiscuous prostitution, and at length perhaps, with her own hand, anticipating the more tedious murder of its diseases! He need not, if I am instructed rightly, have tortured his fancy for the miserable consequences of hope bereft, and expectation plundered. Through no very distant vista, he might have seen the form of deserted loveliness weeping over the worthlessness of his worldly expiation, and warning him, that as there were cruelties no repentance could atone, so there were sufferings neither wealth, nor time, nor absence could alleviate.* If his memory should fail him, if he should deny the picture, no man can tell him half so efficiently as the venerable advocate he has so judiciously selected, that a case might arise, where, though the energy of native virtue should defy the spoliation of the person, still crushed affection might leave an infliction on the mind, perhaps less deadly, but certainly not less indelible. I turn from this subject with an indig nation which tortures me into brevity; I turn to the agents by which this contamination was effected. I almost blush to name them, yet they were worthy of their vocation. They were no other than a menial servant of Mr. Dillon; and a base, abandoned, profligate ruffian, a brother-in-law of the devoted victim herself, whose bestial appetites he bribed into subserviancy! It does seem as if by such a selection he was determined to degrade the dignity of the master while he violated the finer impulses of the man, by not merely associating with his own servant, but by diverting the purest * MR. PHILLIPS here alluded to a verdict of 5000l. obtained at the late Galway Assizes against the defendant, at the suit of Miss Wilson, a very beautiful and interesting young lady, for a breach of promise of marriage. Mr. WHITESTONE, who now pleaded for Mr. Dillon, was Miss Wilson's advocate against him on the occasion alluded to. streams of social affinity into the vitiated sewer of his enjoyment. Seduced by such instruments into a low public-house at Athlone, this unhappy girl heard, without suspicion, their mercenary panegyric of the defendant, when, to her amazement, but no doubt, according to their previous arrangement, he entered and joined their company. I do confess to you, gentlemen, when I first perused this passage in my brief, I flung it from me with a contemptuous incredulity. What! I exclaimed, as no doubt you are all ready to exclaim, can this be possible? Is it thus I am to find the educated youth of Ireland occupied? Is this i the employment of the miserable aristocracy that 3 yet lingers in this devoted country? Am I to find them, not in the pursuit of useful science, not in the encouragement of arts or agriculture, not in the relief of an impoverished tenantry, not in the proud march of an unsuccessful but not 4 less sacred patriotism, not in the bright page of warlike immortality, dashing its iron crown from guilty greatness, or feeding freedom's laurel with the blood of the despot!-but am I to find them, amid drunken panders and corrupted slaves, debauching the innocence of village-life, and even amid the stews of the tavern, collecting or creating the materials of the brothel! Gentlemen, I am still unwilling to believe it, with all the sincerity of Mr. Dillon's advocate, I do entreat you to reject it altogether, if it be not substantiated by the unimpeachable corroboration of an oath. As I am instructed, he did not, at this time, alarm his victim by any direct communication of his purpose; he saw that " she was good as she was fair," and that a premature disclosure would but alarm her virtue into an impossibility of violation. His sa tellites, however, acted to admiration. They produced some trifle which he had left for her disposal; they declared he had long felt for her a sincere attachment; as a proof that it was pure, they urged the modesty with which, at a first interview, elevated above her as he was, he avoided its disclosure. When she pressed the madness of the expectation which could alone induce her to consent to his addresses, they assured her that though in the first instance such an event was impossible, still in time it was far from being improbable; that many men from such motives forgot altogether the difference of station, that Mr. Dillon's own family had already proved every obstacle might yield to an all-powerful passion, and induce him to make her his wife, who had reposed an affectionate credulity on his honour! Such were the subtle artifices to which he stooped. Do not imagine, however, that she yielded immediately and implicitly to their persuasions; I should scarcely wonder if she did.Every day shows us the rich, the powerful, and the educated, bowing before the spell of ambition, or avarice, or passion, to the sacrifice of their honour, their country, and their souls: what wonder, then, if a poor, ignorant, peasant girl had at once sunk before the united potency of such temptations! But she did not. Many and many a time the truths which had been inculcated by her adoring parents rose up in arms; and it was not until various interviews, and repeated artifices, and untiring efforts, that she yielded her faith, her fame, and her fortunes, to the disposal of her seducer.Alas, alas! how little did she suppose that a moment was to come when, every hope denounced and every expectation dashed, he was to fling her for a very subsistence on the charity or the crimes of the world she had renounced for him! How little did she reflect that in her humble station, unsoiled and sinless, she might look down upon the elevation to which vice would raise her! Yes, even were it a throne, I say she might look down on it. There is not on this earth a lovelier vision; there is not for the skies a more angelic candidate than a young, modest maiden, robed in chastity; no matter what its habitation, whether it be the palace or the hut : "So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity, And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, Such is the supreme power of chastity, as described by one of our divinest bards, and the pleasure which I feel in the recitation of such a passage is not a little enhanced, by the pride that few countries more fully afford its exemplification than our own. Let foreign envy decry us as it will, CHASTITY IS THE INSTINCT OF THE IRISH FEMALE: the pride of her talents, the power of her beauty, the splendour of her accomplishments, are but so many handmaids of this vestal virtue; it adorns her in the court, it ennobles her in the cottage; whether she basks in prosperity or pines in sorrow, it clings about her like the diamond of the morning on the mountain flowret, trembling even in the ray |