these divisions had taken place, stated his case in support of the bill. His statement occupied two days, the 19th and 21st of August. The close of it was drowned by the drums, trumpets, and tumultuous acclamations which announced the approach of the queen. The examination of witnesses immediately began, and soon produced a remarkable incident. The queen, upon hearing the clerk of the house call the name of Teodoro Majocchi, the third witness, started from her seat with an indistinct cry, and retired from the scene. He had been her servant; and her cry, instead of proceeding from conscious guilt taken by surprise, may have been a movement of disgust and indignation at his ungrateful treachery.

The records of this scandalous investigation, including both the questions and answers, are utterly intangible. A viler mass of contaminating details, moral and physical, was never condemned to expurgation since the art of printing was invented. On the 7th of September the case against the queen was closed. An adjournment took place, to allow the necessary time for preparation to the other side. On the 3d of October Mr. Brougham stated the queen's defence at great length, and with surpassing power. He was ably followed by Mr. Williams on the same side. The examination of the queen's witnesses continued to the 24th of October. An Italian witness, named Rastelli, was examined in support of the bill. Upon application by the counsel for the queen to have him produced for further examination, it proved that he had been sent back to Italy. His absence was regarded

as an instance of impudently criminal chicanery. Lord Liverpool and the law officers disclaimed all knowledge of the matter; and the whole responsibility was fixed upon the attorney for the bill. That person declared that he did not know Rastelli would be wanted; that he sent him home to quiet the fears of the families of the other Italian witnesses; that he wrote to colonel Brown to send him back with all speed, and was informed by the colonel, in answer, that Rastelli was suffering from fever and jaundice, and had, moreover, an insuperable horror of the sea.

The evidence against the bill being closed, Mr. Denman went over the case, not only with distinguished eloquence, but with a freedom and fearlessness which reached the utmost license of defence. He discarded the king to deal only with the accusing husband, whom he exhibited with all his self-disqualifying unworthiness, as a complainant and an accuser, upon his head. The duke of Clarence was among the most earnest supporters of the bill. He was understood to have spoken privately in the most injurious terms of the queen. Mr. Denman apostrophised him in an elaborate, energetic, unparalleled diatribe. William IV. has more than forgotten the resentments of the duke of Clarence. By separating the advocate from the man, and making Mr. Denman his first law-officer, he has given an example of superior sense and magnanimity surpassing the trite one of Louis XII. Dr. Lushington followed on the same side. The king's attorney and solicitor occupied four days-the 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th - in replying. All the

counsel on both sides who spoke, eminently distinguished themselves. It was, perhaps, the first time that English lawyers appeared on a level with a great case, at the trial of which the nation might be said to look on. The case of Warren Hastings was a parliamentary, not a forensic proceeding; and the seven bishops were but poorly defended, though lord Somers was one of their counsel.

The examination of witnesses and the addresses of counsel having been brought to a close, the discussion on the second reading of the bill began on the 2d, and continued by adjournment to the 6th of November. It was then read a second time, by a majority of 123 to 95. Lord Dacre was charged by the queen with a protest, which he presented to the house. The queen not having appeared in person at the bar, it was received only as her representation of her case. The house having gone into committee, a discussion took place on the divorce clause. Some bishops, and other supporters of the bill, resisted this clause from religious scruples, or the dread of recrimination by the queen upon her husband, of which a significant hypothetical menace was thrown out at the commencement of the proceedings by Mr. Brougham. But the opposition peers voted for it; and it was carried by a majority of 120 to 62. This majority, the result of a parliamentary manœuvre, proved fatal on the third reading. Many peers, who would have voted for the bill without, voted against it with the divorce clause; and, on the 10th of November, it was read a third time by a disheartening majority of 108 to 99. The queen petitioned to be heard by counsel

against its passing. Lord Liverpool, in reply, declared that, with so small a majority in the actual state of the public feeling, he and his colleagues abandoned the bill. The house adjourned over to the 26th of November. In the interval the queen demanded, and was refused, a royal palace for her residence. On the 26th, after the routine business of the house of commons had been gone through, Mr. Denman rose to present a message from the queen on the subject of this refusal. He had but just commenced reading it, when the usher of the black rod presented himself at the bar. His appearance caused an explosion of loud and tumultuous murmurs. His lips moved, but not a word spoken by him could be heard. The speaker, however, left the chair, -paced the floor amidst cries of shame, and other exclamations of more distinct import, proceeded to the house of lords with the ministers and their friends in his train, and was informed that the session of parliament was prorogued. Thus ended, in defeat and disgrace, the domestic war which George IV. carried on, for twenty-five years, against his unhappy consort.

The guilt and innocence of the queen have been not only asserted, but believed with equal confidence. An opinion upon the subject is uncalled for here. It should, however, be remarked, in justice to her memory, that much of the evidence against her was tainted with corrupt practice and perjury to the very core. Another general remark suggests itself in her favour. If, as her accusers charged her, she indulged her infatuated passion for her menial paramour, with an utter disregard of common

vigilance as well as common shame, how was it that her accusers, with as great facilities and as little scruple as ever existed in such a case, could produce against her only circumstantial evidence? She appears, it is true, to have been a woman of coarse mind and unfeminine demeanour; but much of this must have been superinduced by the revolting grossnesses which had been associated, however falsely, with her person and character. In the contaminating investigations through which she had been so frequently and publicly dragged, she had lost that unsullied, delicate freshness of reputation and respect, which is not only the great social charm, but the great safeguard of innocence in the sex. But, whether the charges against her were false or true, the result was a popular triumph which reflects eternal honour on the middle classes of the English people. That rightminded mass of the democracy of England interfered to shield an unprotected woman against the hatred of a husband, the power of a king, and the unworthy arts of ministers; who, in this instance, acted rather as the slaves of a tyrannical will than as the constitutional advisers of a limited monarch.