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that any breath of his should send tainted into the world was there to lead to a suspicion that he was hurt? Courpersons depending for their subsistence on their charac- voisier was safe, the cook was safe, and why should she ter." Surely this ought to be sufficient. * * * Can suspect that her master was not safe too ?-Times, June any disclaimer be more complete? And yet, in the face 22, 1840.

of this, for nine successive years has this most unscrupulous of slanderers reiterated his charge. Not quite three weeks ago he recurs to it in these terms:-"How much worse was the attempt of Mr. Phillips to throw the suspicion of the murder of Lord William Russell on the innocent female servants, in order to procure the acquittal of his client, Courvoisier, of whose guilt he was cognizant!" I have read with care the whole report in the Times of that three hours' speech, and I do not find a passage to give this charge countenance.-Times, Nov. 20, 1849.

derer and afflicted with nocturnal visions, does not hear the aged and butchered victim crying for justice, but the cowardly and quivering assassin shrieking for impunity. But supposing Mr. Phillips' strenuous efforts to have been rewarded. by a verdict, would he have dreamt of the fee he had earned, or of the innocence he had placed in jeopardy?

It will be observed that Mr. Phillips silently posing that the murder had been committed by admits, at the opening of the last passage quoted some one who had opportunities of easy access to from his exculpation, that he had cast aspersions the bed-room of the victim; and it was in the of guilt upon the female servants during cross-nature of things inevitable, that in proportion examination, and before he had received his as the guilt of the deed was thrown off a susclient's confession. But let the reader honestly pected person who lived or acted in its proximity, say whether the passages quoted from his speech it would have the tendency to gravitate to other after he knew Courvoisier's guilt were not calcu- persons similarly obnoxious to suspicion. Mr. lated to strengthen, rather than remove, the effect Phillips has favored us with a description of his of previous aspersions. Is not the guilt of a fore- restless night before he delivered his speech, knowledge of the murder, if not of the murder whereby it would seem, such is the effect of that itself, distinctly implied? With this impression, golden link which is called the honorarium, that embittered by our knowledge of the subsequent a conscientious professional man, feed by a murfate of this unhappy woman,* we lately worded the charge against Mr. Phillips in such manner as possibly to have conveyed our belief in his intention to procure the actual death of the innocent. That he had any such intention, however, at any period, was no assumption of ours. It has been seen how we treated the assertion when it was made by others. What the effect of his remarks might have been is a different and more serious It is no desire of ours that has again dragged question; and this is in no respect qualified by us into these painful details, and we have pursued the formal disclaimer on which he now relies for them with a scrupulous avoidance of exaggerahis vindication. To disclaim a reference in the tion or overstatement. It is very possible that presence of actual and direct insinuations is one Mr. Phillips, from the moment he heard the conof the fouler.artifices of rhetoric-nothing more. fession, would rather have spared the wrong to Our plain and distinct averment against Mr. the female servants: but the foul work of destroyPhillips is, that, with a perfect knowledge where ing their credibility and character, which was his the guilt lay, he endeavored to cast the suspicion only chance of a verdiet, had to be persisted in; of the guilt upon the innocent. To that averment and it is probable that in his own despite thero we in all respects adhere. crept into his speech, in connection with less Consider the circumstances in which the insin-grave imputations, passages already prepared in uations were thrown out. It was not doubted by accordance with his first day's examination. Mr. any one that an old man had been murdered in his sleep; the strongest reasons existed for sup

*An advertisement is now before us, which appeared in the public papers some time after the trial, to which unhappily no effectual response was made, and which was followed by the announcement, a little later, that Sarah Mancer was the inmate of a pauper lunatic asylum. ARAH MANCER, the housemaid to the late Lord William Russell. The persecutions this por wamtu naderwent, the harassing interrogations to which she was subjected preceding the providential discovery of the guilt of Courvoisier, have so prostrated her mental faculties and bodily strength, as to unfit

her for those duties her station in life have called her to. Some persons have, therefore, ventured this appeal to public charity for the purpose of raising a fund to be applied in alleviation of her present and future wants.

Even the miscreant murderer himself, in his last and

apparently most authentic confession, made to Sheriff Evans, " expressed much regret that any imputation should for a moment have been cast upon either of the poor unoffending female servants who had been so unfortunate as to have been in the house with him."

Phillips, as we need not say to such as are unhappily familiar with his effusions, or have read the extracts just taken from the speech impugned and the letter which defends it, has but a beggarly oratorical wardrobe. He has little change of dress for a change of occasion. He has had to furbish up a very scanty collection of tawdry rags and ornaments for his various public appearances; and we can easily conceive his inability to meet a sudden demand for inflated and bombastic epithets and sentences, other than were already composed for the day's display. "His poverty and not his will consented." But the plea was not a good one in the mouth of the beggarly wretch who used it to excuse his vending of poison, and it will as little avail Mr. Phillips for the voiding of foul insinuations. The vice of his example has had as pernicious an effect as if it had reflected

the utmost vice of intention; and to this we have directed our strictures.

question imperfectly. It is one of personal and professional morality.

Mr. Baron Parke has deposed, in favor of Mr. Mr. Phillips charges the Examiner with having Phillips, that he narrowly watched him during the "invented" the accusations against him which have delivery of his speech, and that he had carefully been under notice, and introduces slanderer, coiner, abstained, throughout it, from giving any personal libel-mint, and the like Old Bailey epithets, into opinion in the case. But Mr. Baron Parke must his tawdry and ill-written letter. These things have been somewhat wanting in attention to what do not affect us in the least. This journal is passed from Mr. Phillips, if he detected no delib-| before the public from week to week, and for more erate falsehood, very strongly involving "personal than thirty years it has not appeared in a court of opinion," in Mr. Phillips' reiterated solemn assev-law to meet even a charge of libel. We know erations that the OMNISCIENT GOD ALONE KNEW of nothing that should make us acknowledge who did the crime, and that Courvoisier's guilt, interests superior to what we believe to be the supposing him guilty, was KNOWN TO ALMIGHTY public interests, and we take no fees to disturb our GOD ALONE the speaker having at the time, as dreams. The only libeller affected in this affair Mr. Baron Parke well knew, a knowledge of the is Mr. Phillips himself, and the worst of his libels person by whom the murder was committed, Mr. is that upon his own profession. Passages stand Clarkson also possessing that knowledge, and Mr. at the head of this article which will have told Baron Parke himself having been made privy to the reader what honorable men in practice at the that knowledge. bar have heretofore thought of the practice of Mr. Nothing in truth is so easy, in cases of this Phillips; nor do we think it likely that their ver kind, as to convey all sorts of " personal opinion" diet, which may be said to have passed into history, without direct commitment of the person. Chief has any chance of being now reversed. That a Justice Tindal, being appealed to, confirmed Mr. man may not defend a client whom he even knows Baron Parke's statement; but, with all respect for to be guilty, we have never said. But if he does the memory of that distinguished and upright so, he is precluded from urging anything in the magistrate, we rate his charge to the jury at a case which the guilty man himself would not have higher value than his corroboration of his brother had the right to urge. The barriers which the judge. The greater part of Chief Justice Tindal's law has thrown up against illegal conviction are summing up was directed to the removal of suspi- as fairly the safeguard of the guilty as of the cions of an "unjust and depraved conspiracy" innocent, but the advocate of the guilty has to plotted by the witnesses against the prisoner, to stand with his weapons of defence at these alone. the clearing away stains from the characters of the It is for the benefit of society that he should repremaid servants, to the removal of imputations sent his client to the extent of giving him every against the respectability of Madame Piolaine, and advantage of his knowledge of law, of his skill in to the unloosing such epithets as "miscreant blood- sifting evidence, and of his means of giving due hounds" and "inquisitorial ruffians" from members significance to facts, but not, as we before remarked, of the police-with all which various falsehoods to the extent of lying for him, far less of making Mr. Phillips had done his best to inoculate the false charges against others, or of blackening the jury. "Personal opinion" might have the least character of witnesses whom he knows to have possible to do with any of these charges; but the been speaking truly. This is no man's right. It question whether the origination of such charges cannot be possessed, and therefore cannot be transby any other means was allowable, still remains. ferred. "No counsel," said Lord Langdale in Mr. Phillips avowed that he knew nothing, and the case of Hutchinson v. Stephens, supposes could therefore have had no "personal opinion," himself to be the mere advocate or agent of his of Madame Piolaine; but he nevertheless assumed client, to gain a victory, if he can, on a particular a right to throw wicked aspersions on her, and did occasion. The zeal and the arguments of every his best to render her discharge of a sacred social counsel, knowing what is due to himself and his duty not matter of consolatory reflection, but of honorable profession, are qualified not only by conpainful and degrading recollection. Mr. Phillips siderations affecting his own character as a man of knew on Friday morning that his client had com- honor, experience, and learning, but also by con mitted the murder, although at midday on Satur-siderations affecting the general interests of justice." day he solemnly asseverated that the Omniscient Is there any man of honor, experience, and learn God alone knew who did it; and there was unde-ing, who does not agree with Lord Langdale ? niably as much "personal opinion" in this as was Mr. Phillips naturally seeks a more congenial required for the composition of a deliberate false-model, and appeals to a dictum of Lord Brougham, hood, with something like blasphemy to support it. thrown out, as he bombastically phrases it, "even On the other hand it needed no "personal opinion" to the affronting of a king." Destroying the to alarm the jury with threatened dangers to their character of a maid servant, we are simple enough eternal salvation; nor was it necessary that "per- to think, implies a higher stretch of moral reck- · sonal opinion" should have had anything to do lessness than the affronting of a king; but we with the dismissal of Sarah Mancer to a destiny confess to little sympathy with the courage involved hardly less dreadful than that of the murdered or in either. "An advocate," said Lord Brougham, the murderer. Personal opinion touches the whole defending Queen Caroline, "by the sacred duty

66

which he owes his client, knows, in the discharge | ful flourishes of the knife, where the blood flows

of that office, but one person in the world, THAT CLIENT AND NONE OTHER. To save that client by all expedient means-to protect that client at all hazards and costs to all others, and among others to himself—is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties; and he must not regard the alarm, the suffering, the torment, the destruction, which he may bring upon any other." A more detestable doctrine than this, or one that, if generally acted on, would more surely break down the whole framework of society, it is impossible to imagine; and it would be unjust, even to Lord Brougham, to attribute it to any more deliberate origin than the profoundly parasitical desire to exaggerate the moral obligation which had forced him, in that special case, into opposition to George IV. It was reserved for Mr. Phillips to make it a common rule of practice; and, by such advocacy as that for Courvoisier, to separate himself forever, in fame and character, from the class of advocates described by Lord Langdale.

Bentham has compared the relation of barrister and client to a compact of guilt between two confederated malefactors; and what better would it be if duty to a client justified such revolting aggression upon the innocent, such wicked perversion of truth, such solemn asseveration of falsehood, such abuse of the tribunal and forms of justice into engines of the worst injustice, as were presented in the defence of Courvoisier by Mr. Charles Phillips?

[As this is a subject of great importance, we shall probably continue it next week.-Living Age.]

NEW BOOKS.

From the New York Tribune.

People I Have Met; or, Pictures of Society and People of Mark, drawn under a thin veil of Fiction. By N. P. WILLIS. New York: Baker & Scribner.

This quaint title might lead those who are unskilled in the mysteries of modern book-craft, to anticipate a different vein of writing from what they will find in the present amusing volume. Instead of a gallery of portraits of world-renowned celebrities, impressed on the memory of the author from his wanderings in many lands, it is a series of light, sparkling, pictorial sketches of society and manners, in which, if any personalities are described, they are so shaded off with the bold touches of a rapid pencil, that it would not be easy for their own "maternal relative" to perceive their identity. The exceptions to this rule are not very numerous, and those, it must be confessed, are for the most part so sublimely audacious, that when intended for satire, the point of the arrow is blunted by the savage energy with which it is thrown. In general, this volume consists of a variety of off-hand, good-natured descriptions, clothed in the fine, transparent, gossamer web of a subtle fancy, which the writer always uses with such magical effect; though at times the artist gives place to the dissecter, and we are then treated to certain grace

at every stroke. Most of these pieces have seen the light before, but the connoisseurs of this peculiar branch of literature, in which Mr. Willis is unique, in this country, will be glad to possess them in a permanent form. Their gay persiflage, their insight into human weakness, their mirrorlike reflection of the glancing phases of society, their fine descriptive touches, to say nothing of their occasional brilliant diabolism, are qualities which will always make them attractive, in spite of the many short-comings with which they impress us in our critical moods.

Poems, by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. In Two

Volumes. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. New York: Sold by G. P. Putnam.

This is a revised edition of Lowell's poems, in the elegant costume which always adorns the tasteful publications of Messrs. Ticknor & Co. Several poems are left out of the first volume, and their places supplied by selections from an earlier volume published in 1841. The sebond volume contains some additional poems of a recent date. This edition is a grateful New-Year's gift to the wide circle of the author's admirers, and will increase his high reputation, with all who love to see the aspirations of idealized humanity expressed in bold, earnest, and vigorous poetry.

American Historical and Literary Curiosities. Collected and Edited by J. J. SMITH and JOHN T. WATSON. New York: G. P. Putnam.

This is a regular-built curiosity shop, and will delight the eyes of amateurs. Among other varieties which it comprises may be found a fac-simile of the celebrated Pitcher portrait of Washington, several letters from General Washington in exact resemblance of the original hand-writing, an autograph autobiography of John Adams and of ChiefJustice Marshall, an Indian Gazette, Curious Title Pages from Books in the Philadelphia Library, a variety of Autographs of modern authors, Bancroft, Percival, Longfellow, Halleck, Poe, Whittier, Brownson, Dr. Channing, R. H. Dana, Edward Everett, N. P. Willis, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others, the Commission of Benedict Arnold as Major-General, Title Page of Elliot's Indian Bible, with many other antiquarian specimens of no less interest. This curious work is rich in associations and suggestions of the olden time, and is well suited to piece out the broken links of conversation in fashionable drawing-rooms.

Visions and Voices, by JAMES STANTON BABCOCK. Hartford: Edwin Hunt. New York: Baker & Scribner.

This volume consists of a collecton of posthu mous poetry, by an author whose promise of future distinction was cut off by an early death. He was a ripe and accomplished scholar, possessing a highly cultivated taste and no ordinary power of reflection and imagination. An interesting bigraphical notice is prefixed to the volume, and several philosophical fragments in prose are. given at its close.

The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey. |
Part I. Edited by his Son, CHARLES CUTHBERT
SOUTHEY. To be completed in Six Parts. New
York: Harper & Brothers.

The Iliad of Homer. Translated by R. COWPER.

An elegant reprint of Southey's edition of this work has just been issued by G. P. Putnam, with notes by the American editors, M. A. Dwight, This volume opens with recollections of South- and E. P. Peabody, of Boston-both women of ey's early life, written by himself in a series of the literary taste and cultivation which eminently letters to a friend. They are characterized by the qualify them for the task. It contains illustranäiveté and graceful ease of expression which give tions from Flaxman's admirable designs. We such a perpetual charm to his narrative style. The need not say that Cowper's rugged, though biography in this part is brought down by the expressive and life-like, version is preferred by editor to the twenty-fifth year of Southey's age, most lovers of Homer, to Pope's smooth and charincluding his college residence, his visit to Lis-acterless translation. Should the present volume bon, and the Susquehanna project. The subse-receive sufficient encouragement, it will be folquent numbers cannot fail to possess an exceeding lowed by a similar edition of the Odyssey. interest, not less on account of the talents and character of their subject, than of his central position in modern English literature.

The King of the Hurons. By the Author of "The
First of the Knickerbockers," &c. New York:
G. P. Putnam.

"A Place in thy Memory," is the title of a little volume by Mrs. S. H. De Krouyft, which presents a strong appeal to the favor of the benevolent, aside from the interesting character of its contents. "Three summers ago," says the author in a touching preface, "I had perfect sight.

blind, yet Providence has made it needful for me to do something to provide for myself food and raiment." Having spent one year at the New York Institution for the Blind, which term expired last May, and finding herself destitute of a home,

This is a story of civilized rather than of sav-I was in one short month a bride, a widow, and age life, in spite of the title, and displays the same power of expression and skilful grouping of character, which have won an extensive popularity to the former productions of the author. With his decided talent for invention and graphic delineation, he can scarcely fail to obtain an eminent rank in the fictitious literature of the country.

The Other Side; or, Notes for the History of the
War between Mexico and the United States.
Translated from the Spanish by ALBERT C.
RAMSAY. New York: John Wiley.

This work, from which The Tribune has already given several extracts while it was passing through the press, is a literary curiosity, as well as a valuable historical production. As a vivid portraiture of the horrors of the unhappy Mexican War, it cannot fail to be read with great interest. It

the author was induced to solicit subscribers to

the present volume. She met with general sym-
pathy and encouragement.
The work consists of
familiar letters to various friends, written in an
unaffected epistolary style, and breathing a spirit
of beautiful cheerfulness under the sad deprivation
which the author has suffered.
Whoever pur-
chases this volume will make an acceptable New-
Year's gift to one with whom the world has gone
hard. (New York: John F. Trow.)

Somerville's Physical Geography, a clever, and to us most entertaining book, has been republished from the last London edition by Lee & Blanchard, of Philadelphia. This edition is

presents in strong colors the view of the subject considerably enlarged, with new matter, collected prevailing in Mexico, though it retains to a remarkable extent the impartiality essential to an historical narrative.

from the more recent researches of travellers and

naturalists, and some inaccuracies have been corrected. A glossary of scientific and technical

Treatise on Marine and Naval Architecture. By terms has been prepared for the American edition,

JOHN W. GRIFFITHS.

which will add to its value as a work intended for popular perusal.-N. Y. Eve. Post.

C. S. FRANCIS & Co. have just published "The French Metropolis," an elegant octavo

This is the first number of an elegantly printed series on the theory and practice of Ship-Building. The whole work is to be comprised in twelve numbers of thirty-two pages each, forming a large volume, illustrated with twenty very correct and quarto volume, with more than fifty engravings, beautiful engravings of celebrated edifices and exhibiting the finest models of all descriptions of localities in Paris. This work differs from any vessels. The author proposes to publish a trea- we have seen on the same theme, in the minute tise, that shall embrace everything known to be description of hospitals, physicians, and out-of-the of practical utility on the subject both in the Old way phases of Parisian life. It is lively, full of and New World, with improvements introduced information, interspersed with anecdotes, and by himself, that have had the test of experimental contains descriptive passages of uncommon interevidence. Besides the complete theoretical dis- est. The author is Dr. Gardiner of this city. cussions, it will contain many useful rules required" Bible Cartoons" is a very desirable gift-book, in daily practice, with which many are not issued by the same house, and "The Fairy Gem" familiar. (New York: Published by the Author.) an exquisite little juvenile.-Home Journal.

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POETRY.-The Resurrection of the Body; The Sabbath Bell, 148.-Eternity, 173.
NEW BOOKS.-174, 175 190, 191.

PROSPECTUS. This work is conductec. in the spirit of Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favorably received by the public for twenty years,) but as it is twice as large, and appears so often, we not only give spirit and freshness to it by many things which were xcluded by a mouth's delay, but while thus extending our scope and gathering a greater and more attractive variety, are able so to increase the solid and substantial part of our literary, historical, and political harvest, as fully to satisfy the wants of the American reader.

The elaborate and stately Essays of the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and other Reviews; and Blackwood's noble eriticisms on Poetry, his keen political Commentaries, highly wrought Tales, and vivid descriptions of rural and mountain Scenery; and the contributions to Literature, History, and Common Life, by the sagacious Spectator, the sparkling Examiner, the judicious Athenæum, the busy and industrious Literary Gazette, the sensible and comprehensive Britannia, the sober and respectable Christian Observer; these are intermixed with the Military and Naval reminiscences of the United Service, and with the best articles of the Dublin University, New Monthly, Fraser's, Tail's, Ainsworth's, Hood's, and Sporting Mag azines, and of Chambers' admirable Journal. We do not consider it beneath our dignity to borrow wit and wisdom from Punch; and, when we think it good enough, make use of the thunder of The Times. We shall increase our variety by importations from the continent of Europe, and from the new growth of the British colonies.

The steamship has brought Europe, Asia and Africa, into our neighborhood; and will greatly multiply our connections, as Merchants, Traveliers, and Politicians, with all arts of the world; so that much more than ever it

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WASHINGTON, 27 Dec., 1845.

Or all the Periodical Journals devoted to literature and science which abound in Europe and in this country, this has appeared to me to be the most useful. It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind ic the utmost expansion of the present age.

J. Q. ADAMS

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