CASE OF FAUNTLEROY.

FEW cases of delinquency have excited greater sympathy than that of the late unhappy Fauntleroy. Not only did this sympathy extend to his relations and personal acquaintance, but also to persons of all classes, to whom even his name was utterly unknown till published in connection with those crimes which brought him to an ignominious end. Two circumstances chiefly contributed to produce this general sympathy, the respectability of his station in society; and the motive by which, it is said, he was actuated.

The transition from poverty to prison, whatever be its cause, never excites that general commiseration which is almost invariably connected with a rich delinquent. We naturally invest him with superior knowledge and character, and with a high sense of honour, and suppose that the temptation which led him to burst all those bands asunder, and to throw down all those barriers, was so powerful as to be resistless.

The crimes of the subject of this paper have been ascribed to a generous and honourable principle. It was to save his partners from poverty and disgrace, to accomplish which, he, for a series of years, voluntarily subjected himself to the danger of a public execution. Here was heroic virtue! Here was disinterested benevolence! Here was a philanthropist immolating himself to save others from ruin! Such, I infer from the accounts recently published, were the views and feelings of a large portion of the community.

But were these views and feelings correct? Nothing could be more erroneous. To prove this, it is only necessary to advert to three things; first, to his declared object in committing the first forgery-to be revenged on the Bank of England for refusing to discount their bills. Secondly, to the interest which he had in these nefarious acts. He was a partner, and therefore was as much interested in perpetuating the credit of the bank as any of the other members of the firm. But, thirdly, had he been totally disinterested, and had the Bank of England used the objects of his enthusiastic zeal with the greatest possible illiberality, his conduct cannot either

be admired, or justified, or preserved from execration, unless it be maintained that it is right and honourable to rob those who offend us, and to enrich a few individuals to whom we are attached, by spreading ruin and misery through many families who had confided to us their property. But if such principles be maintained, all moral distinctions between right and wrong are destroyed; the laws of society, which recognize such distinctions, should be repealed; and the most successful thief, supposing that others profited by his depredations, should, instead of being hanged by the neck till he is dead, have a statue erected to his memory, as one of the most virtuous and honourable of his species, in Westminster or St. Paul's, or some other public edifice in which are deposited the illustrious dead.

It is not improbable that many things were published, previously to the trial of Fauntleroy, which were not true. His vices were, I am willing to believe, greatly exaggerated. He does not appear to have expended those immense sums in gambling, that rumour said he had, nor does it appear that his amours were so numerous as reported. Two things, however, are established beyond the possibility of contradiction. First, that he was guilty of a series of forgeries, extending through many years, during which period he had ample time to reflect on the moral turpitude of his crimes, and, during which time, his expenses were such as no man of correct principles would, for a moment, have allowed. And, secondly, that he had lived in adultery with one, if not with several women. I mention the latter circumstance, chiefly for the purpose of offering a few remarks on the exhibition which the public prints have made of him and the female with whom he had cohabited for some time, and by whom he had two children.

He was married, but of his wife we hear comparatively little. The prominent figure on the canvass is the mistress, whilst the deserted and lawful wife is scarcely visible on the back ground. Towards the latter, he indeed did shew some degree of respect, but towards the former he manifested the utmost tenderness. The account of their last interview is drawn up with dramactic art, and clearly to produce dramatic effect. His solicitude for the

welfare of the fruit of their illicit and adulterous intercourse-his expressions of tenderness towards her-her tears and anguish on taking her final leave their looking back, with melting eyes, upon each other, after their last embrace-these, and much more, are all exhibited in the true pathetic, apparently for the purpose of exciting sympathy with the sufferers, and to lead the reader to lament the severity of that fate which thus severed those happy and virtuous characters, "Whom love had knit and sympathy made

one."

What is the impression which this is likely to produce? Simply this, that a man may forsake his wife-join himself to a harlot, and continue to live with her in defiance of the laws of both God and man-when under sentence of death, may receive visits from his guilty and polluted associatemeet and part without one single confession to each other of their abominable wickedness, or a single prayer for Divine forgiveness-and, after all, be a very amiable and lovely pair, whom it would be cruelty to censure, but the constancy and ardour of whose affections we are bound to admire. Such is the obvious tendency of such exhibitions.

But the practical results are most of all to be dreaded. That which we are taught to admire, we shall, if opportunity serve, not hesitate to imitate. If Fauntleroy be admired for his tender solicitude for his mistress, why, asks the licentious youth, should I not participate in similar admiration? If his mistress be exhibited in all the array of female charms, and if her tenderness and constancy be the theme of every party, without one solitary remark on the depravity and degradation of her character, why, asks the thoughtless boarding-school Miss, should I refuse to live under the protection of any fine gentleman whom I may admire?

Public opinion is one of the guardians of virtue. If public opinion hold adultery, and every illicit commerce between the sexes, in reprobation, though these evils, in the present state of the world, will not be annihilated, they will be driven into the shade, and when, at any time, they are brought to light, they will be execrated, and the guilty persons will be rendered infamous. But if public opinion con

sider these as little things—as amiable weaknesses-as things which, if not altogether to be justified, yet not to be severely censured,-then one of the most powerful guardians of virtue is removed, and licentiousness may be expected to pour in upon us like a mighty and desolating torrent.

That the opinion of many is unchristianly lax upon this subject, is a fact deeply to be deplored. Hence, a seducer, who corrupts the principles and heart of an unguarded, and perhaps innocent, female,-or who prevails with a married woman to forsake her husband and her children,-is denominated a protector. A protector! Yes, with the same truth as a wolf is the protector of the lamb-a shark the protector of the herring-and the Devil, who goeth about as the roaring lion, the protector of the saint.

It is to be regretted, that the virtuous part of mankind do not manifest the same abhorrence towards these wretches, that the virtuous among the fair sex do towards kept mistresses and other prostitutes. The woman who should associate with a known prostitute, would instantly lose her character. Let it also be so among our sex. Let the man who associates with seducers and adulterers instantly be suspected, and this would lead to the excommunication of those miscreants from all virtuous society-"a consummation devoutly to be wished."

Far be it from me to pronounce on the final state of Fauntleroy. Already has his fate been decided by that Judge whose sentence is irreversible. But there are two things in the concluding part of his history, which cannot be reviewed without regret, because they indicate an exceedingly defective sense of the sinfulness of sin, and extreme ignorance on the subject of religion. To the first, allusion has already been made, viz. his repeated interviews with the woman who had long been his impure associate, to whom he continued to manifest the most ardent affection to the very last. Godly sorrow would have produced a change here. Instead of admiring and melting over the object of his criminal love, he would, had he been the subject of such sorrow, have put away the noxious thing far from him; or had he permitted her to approach him, it would have been solely to endeavour to impress her mind with a

deep sense of their offences against God and society-to have solicited her forgiveness, for having been accessary to her ruin-and to beseech and entreat her to put her sin away by repentance. But of this, not one word, as far as I have heard, ever escaped his lips. From what has been published, no one, unless informed from some other source, would suppose them any other than a virtuous, but unfortunate, wedded pair, whose affection for each other had been purified and increased by affliction.

The second circumstance referred to, is the advice he gave to his mistress, respecting his children. Be sure, he said, and bring them up in the fear of God, or words to the same effect. The advice itself was good, but the folly consisted in giving it to that individual. Should I hear a man say to a common swearer, or to an habitual thief, Be sure you bring up your children in the fear of God; I should conclude him to be a mere ignoramus, and a total stranger to the obvious and common axiom, that "actions speak louder than words." What opinion, then, are we to entertain of the unhappy man, who, in the immediate prospect of eternity, administers such advice to a woman who had, for so long a time, been his prostitute? Had he, indeed, by any means, induced her to fear God, and to engage to lead a new life, then such advice would have been strictly proper; but to address such counsel to a woman of her principles and character, with any hope of success, would be to expect figs of thistles and grapes of thorns.

It is deeply to be lamented, that the sufferings only, and not the sins, of the unhappy Fauntleroy, have appeared in the concluding part of his history. Let not his crimes be exaggerated, but let them appear in connection with the dreadful consequences to which they led, that society may derive benefit from his death, whose life, at least the latter years of it, had been any thing but a blessing to it; for every adulterer is a curse to society.

Whether his forgeries originated in the necessities created by his adulteries, I am not able to say; but it is a fact, which even a ** *** **, than whom there is not a more licentious wretch existing this day, will not have the hardihood to deny, that the man 76.-VOL. VII.

who abandons himself to the society of prostitutes and adulteresses, will, unless his treasures be great indeed, sooner or later be brought to poverty and disgrace. And, I doubt not, were we in possession of their private history, that we should be able, not only distinctly to trace the connection, in almost every instance, between the mistress, and the prison and the gallows, but also, in a great variety of cases, the connection between the prostitute and the bankrupt would not be less marked and obvious, By means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.-Proverbs. ABEDNEGO,

THE MANUSCRIPTOMANIAC.

(Continued from col. 267.) No. III.-An Opening Chapter. As I promised, in my first number, shortly to present my readers with the opening chapter of an historical romance, in the modern style, by my late friend Sir Robert Bradgate, I think I cannot better occupy the present paper, than by fulfilling the said promise, reserving the Authentic Account of the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, for my next.

But before I proceed to copy from the scribbled sheets of "wire-wove" which lie before me, let me beg leave to offer to "would-be romance writers," a few directions how to dish up three volumes on any occasion. They were given me by an eminent modern novelist, who regularly pockets three thousand pounds a year by his address in writing as many pages, and who, of course, perfectly understands how to please the public. Indeed, he always veers with the popular taste, and is a complete literary weathercock.

When sentimental volumes were in fashion, he was one of the most active members of Lane's Leadenhall-street establishment, and made his heroines sigh, from page to page, as he expressed himself, "with the best of them." When the Mysteries of Udolpho became so popular, he conjured up a gloomy castle, and a few dozen thorough-bred supposed ghosts, in a trice, so that he was only placed second to Mrs. Ratcliffe herself in that department of fiction. I saw, after that was published,

"The