present system should continue? What! when war and peace have alternately thrown every family in the empire into mourning and poverty, shall the fattened tax-gatherer extort the starving manufacturer's last shilling, to swell the unmerited and enormous sinecure of some wealthy pauper? Shall a borough-mongering faction convert what is misnamed the National Representation into a mere instrument for raising the supplies which are to gorge its own venality? Shall the mock dignitaries of Whiggism and Toryism lead their hungry retainers to contest the profits of an alternate ascendency over the prostrate interest of a too generous people? These are questions which I blush to ask, which I shudder to think must be either answered by the parliament or the people. Let our rulers prudently avert the interrogation. We live in times when the slightest remonstrance should command attention, when the minutest speck that merely dots the edge of the political horizon, may be the car of the approaching spirit of the storm? Oh! they are times whose omen no fancied security can avert; times of the most awful and portentous admonition. Establishments the most solid, thrones the most ancient, coalitions the most powerful, have crumbled before our eyes; and the creature of a moment robed, and crowned, and sceptred, raised his fairy creation on their ruins! The warning has been given; may it not have been given in vain!

I feel, Sir, that the magnitude of the topics I have touched, and the imminency of the perils

which seem to surround us, have led me far beyond the limits of a convivial meeting. I see I have my apology in your indulgence-but I cannot prevail on myself to trespass farther. Accept, again, Gentlemen, my most grateful acknowledgments. Never, never can I forget this day : in private life it shall be the companion of my solitude; and if, in the caprices of that fortune which will at times degrade the high and dignify the humble, I should hereafter be called to any station of responsibility, I think I may at least fearlessly promise the friends who thus crowd around me, that no act of mine shall ever raise a blush at the recollection of their early encouragement. I hope, however, the benefit of this day will not be confined to the humble individual you have so honoured: I hope it will cheer on the young aspirants after virtuous fame in both our countries, by proving to them, that however, for the moment, envy, or ignorance, or corruption, may depreciate them, there is a reward in store for the man who thinks' with integrity and acts with decision. Gentlemen, you will add to the obligations you have already conferred, by delegating to me the honour of proposing to you the health of a man, whose virtues adorn, and whose talents powerfully advocate our cause; I mean the health of your worthy Chairman, Mr. SHEPHERD.

SPEECH

OF

'MR. PHILLIPS

IN

THE CASE OF GUTHRIE v. STERNE,

DELIVERED

IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS,

DUBLIN.

My Lord and Gentlemen,

IN this case I am of counsel for the plaintiff, who has deputed me, with the kind concession of my much more efficient colleagues, to detail to you the story of his misfortunes. In the course of a long friendship which has existed between us, originating in mutual pursuits, and cemented by our mutual attachments, never, until this instant, did I feel any thing but pleasure in the claims which it created, or the duty which it imposed. In selecting me, however, from this bright array of learning and of eloquence, I cannot help being pained at the kindness of a partiality which forgets its interest in the exercise of

its affection, and confides the task of practised wisdom to the uncertain guidance of youth and inexperience. He has thought, perhaps, that truth needed no set phrase of speech; that misfortune should not veil the furrows which its tears had burned; or hide, under the decorations of an artful drapery, the heart-rent heavings with which its bosom throbbed. He has surely thought that, by contrasting mine with the powerful talents selected by his antagonist, he was giving you a proof that the appeal he made was to your reason, not to your feelings-to the integrity of your hearts, not the exasperation of your passions. Happily, however, for him, happily for you, happily for the country, happily for the profession, on subjects such as this, the experience of the oldest amongst us is but slender; deeds such as this are not indigenous to an Irish soil, or naturalized beneath an Irish climate. We hear of them, indeed, as we do of the earthquakes that convulse, or the pestilence that infects, less favoured regions; but the record of the calamity is only read with the generous scepticism of innocence, or an involuntary thanksgiving to the Providence that has preserved us. No matter how we may have graduated in the scale of nations; no matter with what wreath we may have been adorned, or what blessings we may have been denied; no matter what may have been our feuds, our follies, or our misfortunes; it has at least been universally conceded, that our hearths were the home of the domestic virtues, and that love, honour, and conjugal fidelity, were the dear and

indisputable deities of our household: around the fire-side of the Irish hovel hospitality circumscribed its sacred circle; and a provision to punish created a suspicion of the possibility of its violation. But of all the ties that bound-of all the bounties that blessed her Ireland most obeyed, most loved, most reverenced the nuptial contract. She saw it the gift of Heaven, the charm of earth, the joy of the present, the promise of the future, the innocence of enjoyment, the chastity of passion, the sacrament of love: the slender curtain that shades the sanctuary of her marriage-bed, has in its purity the splendour of the mountain-snow, and for its protection the texture of the mountain-adamant. Gentlemen, that national sanctuary has been invaded; that venerable divinity has been violated; and its tenderest pledges torn from their shrine, by the polluted rapine of a kindless, heartless, +prayerless, remorseless adulterer! To you-religion defiled, morals insulted, law despised, public order foully violated, and individual happiness wantonly wounded, make their melancholy appeal. You will hear the facts with as much patience as indignation will allow-I will, myself, ask of you to adjudge them with as much mercy as justice

will admit.

The Plaintiff in this case is JOHN GUTHRIE; by birth, by education, by profession, by better than all, by practice and by principles, a gentleman. Believe me, it is not from the common-place of advocacy, or from the blind partiality of friendship, that I say of him, that whether considering