The volume concludes with a couple of detached poems, Torquil and Oona, an affecting tale of the Northern Coasts, told with the true ballad energy; the other an Ode to Blaavin in Skye, very pleasant for the affectionateness and domesticity of its tone, and with great rythmical force in it. We could have wished to quote from both of these, but our space is more than exhausted, and we have the satisfaction of believing that this, Mr Smith's most entirely pleasing and successful volume, is already in the hands of nearly all our readers.

ECCLESIASTICAL INTELLIGENCE.

Clerical Presentation.-We understand that the Right Hon. the Earl of Wemyss and March has presented the Rev. Peter Macvicar, Cockenzie, Tranent, to the church and parish of Manor, in the Presbytery of Peebles, vacant by the death of the late Rev. John Little.

Clerical Presentation.-We understtnd that the Rev. William Smith, lately of Pulteneytown Church, Wick, has been presented by the Earl of Zetland to the parish of Firth and Stennes, vacant by the translation of the Rev. William Logie to the parish of Fintry.

Clerical Presentation.-The Duke of Buccleuch has presented the Rev. James Noble to the parish of Castleton in Roxburghshire.

Induction of Mr Fraser, of St John's, Glasgow.-The Rev. Mr Fraser, late of St Clement's, Aberdeen, was inducted into the church and parish of St John's, Glasgow.

Church and Parish of Bathgate.-The Presbytery of Linlithgow have fixed the 3d October for moderating in a call to the Rev. George Cook, A.M., presentee to the church and parish of Bathgate.

Unlicensed Preachers.-At a meeting of licentiates of the Church of Scotland, in Glasgow, it was resolved that, as the practice of unlicensed students illegally assuming the office of a minister of the gospel still continues, the names of the parties preaching, and the churches in which they have preached, be published in the newspapers; and also, that there be a complaint made at the same time to the Clerk of Synod or Presbytery, of the bounds, and the names of the students thus infringing an express Act of the General Assembly be also put in his possession, in order that they may be dealt with according to the laws of the church.-Glasgow Herald.

The Rev. James Sheriff, late of Bombay.-The Bombay Gazette of August 27 says: -"The mission of the Church of Scotland to India, is about to lose a great ornament by the final retirement of the Rev. James Sheriff, at present Superintendent of the General Assembly's Institution in Bombay. Mr Sheriff was for many years attached to this mission at Madras, and afterwards here. Having gone home on sick leave in 1858, he returned again in the end of last year, too soon, as it would seem, for his health, since he is ordered home again, and leaves by the mail this day. Mr Sheriff has been a most devoted, and, we may add, a most successful missionary. He has high qualities and qualifications for the office, a man of great learning-secular, theological, and religious-pious, zealous, discreet, temperate, tolerant, and sympathetic. His tolerance is of the right sort: it combines strong convictions with a generous appreciation of different views."

MACPHAIL'S

EDINBURGH ECCLESIASTICAL JOURNAL.

No. CXC.

NOVEMBER 1861.

MARTYRS TO CIRCUMSTANCE.*

THE trial in Dublin of the case of Thelwall versus Yelverton is still fresh in our minds. Can it ever be otherwise? 'Twas verily a cause celebre, an almost incredible romance of real life. It awoke the most intense interest in all parts of the kingdom. The excitement was nearly as great in London and Edinburgh as in the very scene of the trial where the bodily presence of the parties gave it an advantage. It was, perhaps, the most remarkable, the most interesting, the most complicated, and yet the simplest case that was ever brought before a jury. But a little chink will let in a great light. The facts are easily stated. Mr Thelwall of Hull brought an action against the Honourable William Charles Yelverton, to recover outlay and charge for apartments, board, &c., furnished to his wife. The defence was that nothing had been furnished to his wife; and out of this simple issue, so unpromising, so very matter-of-fact, there evolved a ten days' trial, not of an ordinary and merely technical kind, but one recounting rare adventures both by field and flood, the serenity of conventual life, the terrors of a plague-ship, the miseries of a military hospital, the romance of a persistent courtship amid the dangers and avocations of a siege, the poetry of love literature, the beautiful and dreamy scenery of the Bosphorus, the bustle of Balaclava, the wild grandeur of the Scottish Highlands, the verification once more of the adage that the course of true love never did run smooth. The appearance of the heroine, whose stage was no more the convent, the ship's deck, the General's hut, or the primrose green of wedded happiness, but the witness-box of a court, will never be forgotten by any one who

Martyrs to Circumstance. By the Honourable Mrs Yelverton. Bentley. 1861.

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VOL. XXXII.

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was fortunate enough to see her. She did a round, unvarnished tale deliver. She told with brave and artless truth the story of her eventful life-how and where she had been wooed-how with a heart overflowing with affection she yet shrunk from the subtle and tempting suggestions of casuistry, and clung to the proprieties and the order of the religion which she professed-how her bridal had no accessories but the sacredness of the House of Prayer-how she wandered, and suffered, and wept-and how, in a time of great bodily weakness and prostration, she was foully abandoned. The most searching crossexamination failed in the least degree to shake the credit of her narrative, or cast the shadow of a doubt on any statement she had made. The very seal of confession was rudely handled, but all to no purpose; and an insulting and irrelevant examination as to the history of a motherless childhood and a homeless youth was equally fruitless.

There are few men in the world who could sustain and survive the ordeal through which this lady passed unscathed. It is all very well to speak of the invulnerable strength of conscious rectitude; but let those, who talk slightingly of the moral fortitude and self-sacrifice required in a case like this, reserve their judgment until they have spent two days, or two hours, or even two minutes in the witness-box. Garrick, the most self-possessed of actors, lost his presence of mind as a witness, and Burke, the most philosophic of orators, was confused and silent before an assembly of student lads at Glasgow. But Mrs Yelverton, with all the natural delicacy of her sex and the timidity of a tender-hearted woman, was indeed strong in truth, and gave to the people of Dublin and to the world a spectacle morally sublime. The letters of lovers are proverbially unfitted for the cognizance of a third party. They enshrine a rigosvra, they have allusions only φωναντα συνετοισιν. They have thoughts that breathe and words that burn, intended alone for one ear and one heart. They are profaned by exposure to another, for they are the very sacrament of the affections. Yet when rudely questioned on these epistles, she explained unintelligible allusions so artlessly and satisfactorily, and interpreted her language with such obvious correctness, that her case was vastly strengthened by this severe part of her examination. Had she contrived a case and schooled herself with the most consummate care as to its details, the answers she should give, and the facts she should suggest, she could not have maintained it under the torturing ordeal to which she was subjected. Her simple truth, her guilelessness, was her stronghold and her safety.

The hero in this trial (if we can so designate a person who occupies in it the place of Satan in the Paradise Lost) was also examined with rigour. In the salient points of his evidence he dared not materially contradict his wife. That was put beyond his power by documents under his own hand, by a certificate of an official character, and by the testimony of witnesses omni exceptione majores. But in order to accomplish his purpose, he swore to a course of deliberate, systematic villany and deception, which was never surpassed in the annals of a criminal court. His story had neither the consistency nor

the straightforward simplicity of the evidence of Mrs Yelverton. He often conveniently did not remember-he generally took time to deliberate as to his answer-he was sometimes even silent-and in certain remarkable instances he contradicted his own testimony. Throughout his whole evidence, his leading idea seemed to be to count no degradation too great, no slander too cruel, if thereby he could obliterate his marriage with the fair and gifted Theresa Longworth, who, according to the opinion of the presiding Judge was one "who in manner, demeanour, appearance, intelligence, and talents, would do honour to any station to which any man, however high or well-born his position, could raise her. There can be no doubt that she was in every respect as attractive a girl as ever fell to the lot of any man." But Major Yelverton did not succeed; and, so far as a jury could do so, he was saved from himself. They found that he had made assurance doubly sure, that he had twice observed a valid and lawful ceremony of marriage with his wife, first at Edinburgh, and afterwards near Rosstrevor in Ireland. The first marriage was of the Gretna Green class, without the intervention of the blacksmith, but it partook of a more religious character than usually pertained to the Vulcanic unions, as a prayer-book was employed in the ceremony. The second was at the altar of the parish chapel of Killowen, where the Reverend Mr Mooney presided. The verdict of the jury was received by an immense multitude with the wildest enthusiasm. The excitement of a great victory, when, in the exultation of triumph and the almost maddening sense of relief from imminent and agonizing danger, rank, conventionality, and custom are all disregarded, and strangers embrace as friends, could scarcely exceed the tumultuous rejoicing with which the verdict was welcomed. No doubt it was peculiar to the country where the trial took place. In Westminster Hall, the history of the trial would have been somewhat shorn of its emotional developments. The priest would have retired from the witness-box without being blessed with the hootings or hisses of the crowd-the audience would have taken no part in the judicial proceedings-and the answers of witnesses would have been received in decorous silence and attention, and not with "tremendous cheering." Still, different temperaments will have different manifestations, and we are so conscious of this fact that we apply a different test to the same word or action by different men. What would be daring impiety in Jack is innocent in Martin, and even witty and praiseworthy in Peter. So it will be to the end of the world. Therefore don't let us criticise or condemn the exuberant heartiness of our Dublin cousins, though we have misgivings that emotions so vehement as theirs can scarcely be enduring. Yet such are the power of sympathy and the magnetism of a multitude, that had we been among them we would have tossed our cap as high as any, and hurraed as lustily as the loudest. And no harm done. Only the scene is strange and lawless to those accustomed to the stiff decorum and stolid gravity of the courts of England or Scotland. No judge in either of these countries needs to complain that the