persuaded me that you were going to be married this morning, and I was credulous enough to believe him. I deserve some commiseration, as well as poor John: take us home with you and I will forgive you."-" You ought to ask my forgiveness for thinking I could change my mind."-" Consider the evidence: a church, you no lover of parade, the time, and this gentleman declared he saw the bridegroom. I throw myself on your mercy, and ask forgiveness."-Ón their return John had found current for his feelings; he burst into the kitchen, "Now Mame Cooky I got a name as well as you; no more Negro, and Skip, and Blacky, but John Thomas, you please, dear Massa's name." "What new fiddle has set the fool a dancing now!" said the surly servant, "I'll call you what I please," in the true spirit of John Bull pride. "You shan't; I go to the justice gentleman, that send woman that say bad words to the workhouse, make them work, not help them as I do you when you say kind words."-" You stupid black devil you, go and answer the bell."-"You be a bad woman that calls names." He left her to answer the bell, and let in his mistress and her party. His mistress perceived that John had lost all his spirits, and asked what was the matter. When she was informed she became very angry, and immediately commanded that all provoking language should cease, or she thought it probable that mischief might ensue. She mildly told John not to mind what cook had said to him, but that she would prevent it in future. "Kind Misses, she I be the black dog, the black devil, the neger; but sure she be the very devil, she love noise, she love to call bad names. You have had a commotion to quell, Mrs. Thomas; let me go and play the magistrate to your vixen there;

say

what had the poor fellow done to her?" "Nothing, but come in in high spirits with his emancipation, and she must show her tyranny to him."-" If she were my servant she should instantly march.""She certainly shall, but I cannot spare her on the spur of the moment." John brought up the breakfast-things, and peace was restored below. "John, said Mr. Mordaunt, "be faithful to your mistress, and here is some money to buy you books."-"Bless you, Massa, I can read man, God, and me learn in time to read the book that Misses reads to us, Christ's book !"-" Ay, do John, but do tell me how you came to know your young master?"- "Me one day see young gentleman, very ill, very sick, could not hold up his head; me fetch him some limes, mè lead him home to his lodging; I see him day or two after he getting well. One day, he coming by, my massa he beat me, cause I lose some of his tings, Massa John call out, he say 'For sake of England do not beat the poor fellow; what has he done?'

He lazy,'say my massa, 'he tief."-"No massa, I say, I no tief, I lose de tings.'— I sure you beat him quite cruel, do not beat him any more." At last he say, Will you sell him to me?' and he say yes. Oh! my heart did jump for happy, when Massa John took me; he never beat, he never say bad words, call names; all love him. He send me to Misses: oh! I cry when I left him; he say, Be true to Misses, she be kind to you;' and so she do. She be the white spirit, she teach me to pray, and she make me free."

The morning's adventure ended in Mr. Mordaunt's saying, it was the pleasantest breakfast he ever partook of; and left him more devoted than ever to his widow, whom he secretly pronounced to be the most exalted of women.

NOTHING, then, remains but the linen and woollen-drapery goods, which no man, out of a strait-waistcoat, would ever dream of burying under-ground. The statement is a falsehood upon the

face of it. And after the discovery of these goods, whatever they were, that were found at Houseman's and dug out of Aram's garden-what steps were taken in the way of prosecution? None.

What! did the parties not proceed to identify their property, and take the usual means of bringing these offenders to justice? Not they. Not one foot step did they advance-not one single effort appears to have been made-or attempted to be made by any person towards recovering their goods thus said to be discovered in the house of the one, and dug out of the garden of the other; but the business was dropped till the month of June, 1758—that is, for a period of fifteen years-when Aram was found to be at Lynn, in Norfolk, where he was usher of a school, and arrested for the murder of Clark !"

Upon what evidence produced on the part of the prosecution the jury could justify the bringing in a verdict of guilty, it is utterly impossible to dis

cover.

What motives could actuate the self-declared accomplice, Houseman, to come voluntarily forward to charge himself, at a distance of fifteen years, with being accessory, with Clark and Aram, in obtaining the fraudulent possession of certain goods, apparently with no other object, and for no other purpose, than to swear away the life of Aram, by charging him with the murder of Clark, is a mystery to which there is no clue, but which no one who goes attentively through the whole case can hesitate in ascribing to some deep-laid scheme of revenge on the part of Houseman, who, it is remarkable, procured himself to be acquitted, before he gave against Aram the evidence which was to accomplish his purpose: which evidence has no claim to be received in any point of view in which it can be considered: it carries with it no evidence of truth, and is, in all its details, improbable, inconsistent, and contradictory.

The case of Eugene Aram created at the time a deep and extensive interest, and it has never yet ceased to create it in the mind of every one whose inquiries have led him to the examination of it. His skill in languages was remarkable, he had a knowledge of French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, and Celtic, rarely attained even by any one having all the advantages of

wealth and leisure. He is known to have left several valuable manuscripts behind him, in which are traced the analogy of these languages with an ingenuity and precision that would do

honour even to the best-trained scholars. He was well skilled in botany, and his acquaintance with the abstruser sciences bore testimony to the diligence which he had employed in the study of them.

The following extract from his speech to the court when put on his defence at the close of his trial, while it marks the peculiar character of his intellect, has wherewithal, in the style and tone of it, to have appealed not to the understanding merely, but to the inmost feelings both of the judge and the jury.

First, my Lord, the whole tenour of my conduct in life contradicts every particular of this indictment. Yet I had never said

this, did not my present circumstances extort it from me, and seem to make it ne

cessary. Permit me here, my Lord, to call upon malignity itself, so long and cruelly busied in this prosecution, to charge upon me any immorality, of which prejudice was not the author. No, my Lord, I concerted no schemes of fraud, projected no violence, injured no man's person or property. My days were honestly laborious, my nights intensely studious. And I humbly conceive my notice of this, especially at this time, will not be thought impertinent, or unseasonable; but, at least, deserving some attention; because, my Lord, that any person, after a temperate use of life, a series of

thinking and acting regularly, and without

one single deviation from sobriety, should plunge into the very depth of profligacy, precipitately and at once, is altogether improbable and unprecedented, and absolutely inconsistent with the course of things. Mankind is never corrupted at once; villany is always progressive, and declines from right, step by step, till every regard of probity is lost, and every sense of all moral obligations totally perishes.

Again, my Lord, a suspicion of this kind, which nothing but malevolence could entertain, and ignorance propagate, is violently opposed by my very situation at that time, with respect to health for, but a little space before, I had been confined to my bed, and suffered under a very long and severe disorder, and was not able, for half a year together, so much as to walk. The distemper left me, indeed, yet slowly and in part; but so macerated, so enfeebled, that I was reduced to crutches; and was so far from being well about the time I am charged with this fact, that I never to this day perfectly recovered. Could then a person in this condition take any thing into his head so unlikely, so extravagant? I, past the vigour of my age, feeble and valetudinary, with no inducement to engage, no ability to accomplish, no weapon wherewith to perpe

trate such an act; without interest, without power, without motive, without means. Besides, it must needs occur to every one, that an action of this atrocious nature is never heard of, but when its springs are laid open. It appears that it was to support some indolence, or supply some luxury; to satisfy some avarice, or oblige some malice; to prevent some real, or some imaginary want; yet I lay not under the influence of any of these. Surely, my Lord, I may, consistent with both truth and modesty, affirm thus much; and none who have any veracity, and knew me, will ever question this.

We repeat that there was no evidence produced on the trial, which could conduct any twelve men, at all accustomed to the examination of testimony, to the conclusion that Clark was murdered at all, still less that he was murdered by the hand of the accused. But to the utter disgrace of our criminal jurisprudence, a civil action in which a right of way or some such question is tried, will often occupy four-and-twenty hours, while as many minutes will serve to settle a case of life and death, and too often consigns an innocent man to the

hands of the executioner.

The editor of the trial has been pleased to append to it what he terms "remarks on the proceedings against Eugene Aram."

Aram's sentence (says he) was a just one, and he submitted to it with that stoicism he so much affected; and the morning after he was condemned, he confessed the justice of it to two clergymen, (who had a licence from the judge to attend him), by declaring that he murdered Clark. Being asked by one of them, What his motive was for doing that abominable action? he told them, "He suspected Clark of having an unlawful commerce with his wife; that he was persuaded, at the time he committed the murder, he did right; but since he has thought it wrong."

If this flippant commentator had undertaken to prove Aram's sentence to have been a just one, in lieu of affirming it, his task would not have been quite so easily despatched. As to the pretended confession to two clergymen that he had murdered Clark, any man of common penetration will readily see there is no truth in it. The Newgate Calendar teems with such confessions. No

sooner is it rumoured that an accused person has been condemned unjustly, or upon suspected and insufficient evidence, however vehemently he may have attested his innocence; so careful are certain persons of the reputation of the judge, and the consciences of the jury, that due proclamation is always made to the public, that he died "acknowledging the justice of his sentence."

What is Aram said to have told these said two nameless clergymen? why that after confessing the murder and being asked "his motive for that abominable action," his answer is said to have been, that "he suspected Clark of unlawful commerce with his wife." Why Clark was but newly married, a very simple choice of time for the art of revengeful jealousy to display itself. An existing attachment ending in marriage, is moreover, not very compatible with any offensive manifestations likely to have given rise to so deadly a resentment. And then what becomes of the tale of the goods unlawfully obtained by Clark, which he is alleged to have shared, and to have buried in his garden his portion of the plunder? In fact it is quite clear that this pretended confession of the murder was never made, and the assertion that it was so made when the accused is in his grave and the baseness of which is not lessened can no longer contradict, it is a calumny by the frequency with which it is resorted to. Can any one believe for an instant that a man such as Eugene Aram, could have deliberately, and when fast approaching his last hour, have declared before two clergymen that "he was persuaded at the time he committed the murder, he did right, but that since he has thought it wrong!"

Did any man, even the most stupified by ignorance, or the most hardened in guilt, ever seriously affirm that he thought on committing a murder he had done right? In a question which admitted neither of misapprehension or mistake, could a man of his enlarged and enlightened intellect ever arrive, even for an instant at a wrong conclusion? The falsehood of such a statement carries its own detection along with it.

The Eugene Aram of Mr. Bul

wer is an interesting and well-written novel; and "The Dream of Eugene Aram," by Mr. Hood, shows him not less capable of the sublime, than of the comic in poetry, and that pun and pathos are alike within his reach; but we doubt much the right which any writer has to affix a real and well-known name to a work wholly at war with truth, and more especially when the name of the individual thus assumed is intended to convey the impression that he is the person whose life, conduct, and character is meant to be designated. There are very strong reasons that offer them

selves to every reflecting mind against the introduction of such an inquisitio post mortem as is exhibited by a proceeding such as this. Not only is it fraught with the deepest injustice to the memory of the individual who is the subject of it, but his family, his descendants bearing his name, may suffer, to their latest posterity, much serious and real evil. We consider no man as justified in making the life of another the subject of dramatic version, and least of all when that version is as fatal to his memory as it is treacherous to his fame. S.

ACCESS TO THE ROYAL PRESENCE.

It is generally believed that when an address or petition is presented to the sovereign, something more than the mere title of it reaches the royal ears. This, we say, is generally believed; for it is only the privileged few about the court, and they who pry into court doings, that know how the thing is actually managed. Now, however, there is an end of all mystery; the veil has been removed; and the people are officially informed the royal mind cannot be fatigued with their wishes, their grievances, their prayers, or their petitions. We allude, of course, to the following notification in the Gazette:

Lord Chamberlain's Office,

March 5, 1832.

BY COMMAND OF HIS MAJESTY.

Notice is hereby given that all persons having Petitions or Addresses to present to his Majesty at the Levee are to write on two cards, with their names, a statement of the object of such Petitions or Addresses, and of the persons from whom they come; one card to be delivered to the Page in the Anteroom, and the other to the Lord in Waiting, who will read its contents, at the time of presentation to his Majesty; and that, on these occasions NO OTHER STATEMENT IS TO BE ADdressed tO HIS MAJESTY.

Are there any who will applaud the wisdom or the decency of this prohibition? Is it wise to proclaim to the nation, that addressing the throne is a farce? Is it decent, to tell the people

they may petition or they may address their monarch-but the reasons on which they ground their addresses and petitions, the arguments by which they enforce their prayers, will never be allowed to reach him? The only constitutional benefit to the subject from the privilege he enjoys of approaching the throne is, that he may be able to appeal from the acts of ministers to the royal mind; that he may enlighten the royal mind upon matters seriously affecting his interests and welfare; and claim from its wisdom and justice, what is denied by the servants of the crown. But the ministers have now interposed an effectual bar to the exercise of this privilege, by advising a regulation which will keep the king from knowing any thing except what they may choose to inform him of, and in such way as they may choose; making him the instrument of a party, instead of the king of his people.

FRIENDLY ADVICE TO EARL GREY.

A writer of emphatic truisms in the Times, who signs himself "Philo-Radical," urges Lord Grey to manufacture his regiment of peers, by the following persuasive mode of reasoning:

Lord Grey is too brave to 'fear the scaffold, death would not appal him-but public torture he would sink under it. scorn would be terrific, and the extreme of The scaffold would, in comparison, be as an altar of a feast, and the axe sweeter than a garland of the most odoriferous roses and jessamine.,