inconte in bribing her domestics to silence. The very first step which she took on being informed by one of the Squire's brothers of the report, the intended inquiry, and that an examination of her servants was to take place, was a frank, noble, and dignified refutation of the latter calumny. She had not then risen, and only coolly replied that he might take every domestic in the house with him that instant." But you will want some assistance."-"I will have none-I will wait upon myself."-" You will, at least, require the help of one to dress yourself."-" Take them all with you; from this moment I discharge all my household."

This conduct, upon so sudden a surprise, did not betray a consciousness of being at the mercy of servants-of mercenary ones, as easily to be intimidated by the power of her accusers, as to be bribed by their wealth. In one word-it

laughed the calumny to scorn. The charge was so laughable (if I may be permitted such a term for one so diabolical) that the Commissioners of Inquiry scouted it without calling upon the accused lady to say a syllable in her own defence, and the only reason for keeping their proceedings

secret, we may easily attribute to its utter want of foundation.

As the scandal had got abroad into the public ear, why was not the lady's innocence, if she were innocent, proclaimed as loudly? Such a justification was her due-she had an undoubted right to demand it. But the unfortunate lady was far from home: she had no protector; for her husband, her natural protector, had not only deserted her, but he never stirred in the affair, as if the honour or dishonour of his wife was not of the smallest consequence to him: she had no friends, for her enemies had set all her husband's family against her; and that she must have had the bitterest of enemies, was evident from the diabolical and shameless reports which had been spread to the prejudice of her person and character. What could she do in such a dreadful predicament! Why, rely on a magnanimous, just, brave, and generous people to scout the villainous reports, and hold up the authors of them to detestation. She did so; and she found that she did not repose her fame on a broken reed. The tenaits respected her the more for the intolerable injuries and insults which had

been heaped upon her, and which she had borne with an amiable resignation, though, at the same time, with all the fortitude of conscious innocence, and all the contempt of insulted dignity. They execrated the authors of her sufferings, and would have rejoiced to have seen them dragged forth to public view, and suffering the extremity which the law could inflict on their infamous designs. And as they passed

"the crowded way would sound

With hissing scorn and murm'ring detestation
The latest annals would record their shame
And when th' avenging muse, with pointed rage,
Would sink some impious woman down to hell,
She'd say she's false, she's base, she's foul as”—

those who are guilty, will make the application. We shall now enquire into the passive kind of conduct maintained by the Squire on this unpleasant occasion. Although every man of sense and feeling must have approved of his not pressing matters against his wife; yet it is impossible that they could have entertained a similar opinion of his observing the same passive conduct in not publicly justifying her, by

shewing her some token of esteem, if not of returning love. We cannot command our passions or emotions, whether of affection or antipathy; but it is our duty to keep them within the bounds of decency. A single visit- nay, a single formal complimentary enquiry into the state of her health, would have been sufficient to evince to the public his disbelief, or rather his moral certainty of the infamy of the accusation or report. But he did nothing of the kind.

We say-evince to the public; for they were persons very very nearly concerned in the affair, and they had a right to know the result of the enquiry. By the laws of the manor the lordship was entailed on the lawfully begotten heirs of his ancestors, and, consequently, of himself. The tenants were obliged to swear fealty to the legal possessors, and to maintain them in their rights against all usurpers, with their fortunes and their lives. They must know who were the legal possessors, to be able to maintain their oaths inviolate; and if the wife of the heir apparent were accused of infidelity, the proofs might extend to the whole of her children,

VOL. II.

who would consequently be excluded from the nheritance and the tenants owed them no fealty. If any descendants of the younger branches of the Lord's family should, at a future period, dispute the legality of the Squire's issue, who should be resolved to maintain it, all the horrors of a civil war might ensue, like that which we have before mentioned to have distracted the manor of Freeland, between the red and the white noses. The tenants and their posterity were, therefore, parties as nearly concerned in the issue of the enquiry as the Squire himself or any of his family. It might be said that the commission was not a legal one, but only of a private nature to satisfy the parties themselves; but if it was not intended either to fully justify the accused lady, or if there were no grounds for it, to bring matters to a legal issue, it was appointed for no end at all. But in either case, the public had a right, for the reasons before alleged, to be acquainted with the result. It might also be said that in common life, it is not usual, nay, it is reckoned indelicate and improper, for any reasons whatever (except by blood very nearly connected with the parties) to interfere in a case