Page:Sylvester Sound the Somnambulist (1844).djvu/415

and coffee, it is true; but nothing substantial could any one of them touch.

As nine o'clock was the time at which they were instructed to be at the court, they, at a quarter to nine, entered the carriages of the doctor and Mr. Scholefield, which were waiting at the door, and proceeded at once to the Hall.

This was the reverend gentleman's first appearance in a court of justice, and when he saw five or six rows of barristers as he entered, he really felt awed! He however said nothing; even their appearance seemed to have rendered him speechless; but when the Lord Chief Justice took his seat, he felt that it would be perfectly impossible for him to give any evidence at all.

Well! that being then the first case on the list, "Julian versus Sound" was called. Mr. Charles Phillpotts appeared with Mr. Clark for the plaintiff, and Mr. Slashinger with Mr. O'Phail for the defendant.

The legal preliminaries having been arranged, Mr. Clark opened the pleadings, from which he wished his lordship and the jury to understand, that in this case Sir Charles Julian, Bart., was the plaintiff; that Sylvester Sound was the defendant; that the declaration charged the defendant with having assaulted Matilda Maria, the wife of the plaintiff, &c., &c.; and that the damages were laid at five thousand pounds.

Mr. Phillpots then rose, and spoke as follows: "My lord and gentlemen of the jury. This is one of those cases which, to the honour of the mighty and moral empire in which we live—considering its importance, its population, and its wealth—are comparatively rare. I need not explain to you, gentlemen of the jury, that it is with the most profound anxiety that I approach this subject, for that anxiety will be appreciated when I state that I have confided in my hands the dearest interests of a fellow-creature, who has been wantonly—cruelly—vilely reduced from a state of supreme—of ecstatic happiness, to the deepest and most inconceivable misery. Oh, how I wish that I could place my unhappy—my heart-broken client before you, that his haggard brow, his sorrowing features, his wasted form, and his hollow eye, might manifest the horrible pangs he has endured! Oh, that I could bring him before you now, that you might see what havoc—what agonising havoc—his sufferings have caused! You would then behold a picture of appalling misery, which no words at my command can even feebly portray. I hope most fervently that you may never know how poor—how weak are the utmost exertions of an advocate, when placed under such afflicting circumstances as these! I hope that you may never experience the heart-rending pangs, the agonising sufferings of a man placed—basely placed—in the position of my unhappy client. Gentlemen, the plaintiff is the scion of an honourable family—a family whose antiquity stands unsurpassed, and upon whose escutcheon calumny never dared to breathe. In the affectionate bosom of that family he passed the early portion of his life: but becoming enamoured of her whose honour the defendant has thus vilely tarnished, he married, and for years enjoyed the most supreme felicity on earth. She was amiable, beautiful, and highly accomplished. She possessed every virtue that could adorn her