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husband; Lord Melbourne as a profligate impostor; and I myself as a painted wanton. The time which had been spent in reading translations of Æschylus—listening to explanations of the unknown theories of politics, —
"And search of deep philosophy,
Wit, eloquence, and poesy."
was represented to have been passed in a manner which amazed me less by the falsehood than the coarseness of the invention. The groom-ragseller came into court dead-drunk:[1] other witnesses were proved to be lost characters: cross-examination elicited that they had received money, and had actually resided till the time of trial at the country seat of Lord Grantley. The whole evidence stopped short three years before the actual period of trial, as they dared not call any but these witnesses. The jury listened with open incredulity and disgust to the evidence, and without requiring to hear a single witness for Lord Melbourne, or leaving the jury-box, they instantly gave their verdict against Mr Norton: a verdict which was received with cheers which the Judge vainly attempted to suppress. The impression generally made on the public mind, I give from the letter of Mr David Leahy to Mr Power, who sent it to my younger brother:—
"As I was present during the whole exhibition, I can take it upon me as an impartial spectator to say, that a more infamous case on the part of the plaintiff, never came before a court of justice. All the world—whatever their politics may be, or whatever their opinions about the discretion of the behaviour of all or either of the three principal parties,—must acknowledge that the principal witnesses were perjured and suborned. I have spoken with almost every person present, and there exists a perfect unanimity upon this point. The jury, upon the close of the plaintiff's case, intimated, in a manner perfectly intelligible to the initiated, that it was a mere superfluity to set up any
