The Express.
London, England, 1864-02-12 00:00:00

9ATAILII'.

Tnts Emmet, LITTa—DAISY.—SHE BTOOPS TO CON-
QUER. Mesas. Backstone, Chippendale, Howe, and Gamlen
Mesdames angel. Yitswilham, amowdon.—And NINO AZTEC&
M. Congdon; Mesdames L. belay, Wright, Lindley, Liemer.

P!LINMFS..

TINS Ida, DONNA DIANA.—And RARLEQUTH
LITTLE TOR TUCKER. Ram Seylon Cathcart, A. and C
Letlrmo, Hallos and Sou, Masco, Naylor, and Chpfhao;
Ilesdamas Barnett, Adana, and Howard.

THIS Evarnra, THE LOGY CHILD. Mr. Wlddloosab and
Min P. Leclereq.—BlLL 1411101110, a lore Story. Masers.
Peebles, Brougham. Imam Charles, and laden ; Mints
en Tern, Lassen, and Mawertin, and Mn. lan

BRITANNIA.

THIS EYEIMIO. EfiCIEWY, DICKORY, DOM. Min
IS. Lane and first-rate Pantamimlstn—The Marvels of Peer
—THE OBEAr OHOrdr irrecr.-4rthur and Bertrand.
—The Fairy Forustaln.And MY LORD MALCOM&

HIGH WA AT LONDOS Dames
MI DI! Morning, R. .111inesea. a Itma.
Taitoasow Moray, oh. 6115.....A1k055m Qi 111 i.

LONDON, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12.

EVERY now and then it is suddenly discovered
by some curious inquirer that marriage is going
out of fashion, that young men of limited incomes
and expensive tastes are loth to give up the little
dinner at the Club for cold mutton at home, and
prefer the desolate liberty of the noble savage of
private life to the sublime selfishness of annular
love in a cottage, or, as an atrocious bachelor de-
scribed it, "in • ring fence." And yet, as
Beneditk remarked, "the world must be peopled."
So a garden with an Eva in it (or an ADAM, as
the case may be), is still the ideal condition of
well•regulated human beings in our modern world;
with the Divorce Court, it is true, as a tree of
knowledge in the midst. Marriage, like medicine,
will always be a theme of pleasantry ; of sour
pleasantry for many who have not tasted its
sweets, and for some who hare tasted them too
early or too late. For sacred, and pathetic, and
beautiful as wedlock is, there is a comic side
to it, and sometimes a stern and menacing front.
Two impatient lovers ready to die for each other,
while a couple of cold lawyers are heartlessly de-
laying the settlements, are a familiar illustration
of the irony of love-making in civilized countries ;
but there is nothing like an action for breach of
promise,with a British jury to clap an extinguisher
on the Love-god's inverted torch, to make cynics—
who talk of matrimony as • future state of reward
(and punishment ?)—grin with malicious joy, and
middle-age 4 angels weep. As the LORD Cum,
JUSTICE, in summing up a case of this kind on
Tuesday, declared :—" It was one of the mister-
" tunes of these cases; the lady's feelings were
" outraged, and then she was to be laughed at."
This is sadly true. Love-letters, tremulous with
passion, vows of love eternal, glowing with a heat
that defied grammar and orthography, become
frantic burlesque when inscribed by • law stationer
on the brief of counsel for the plaintiff, and de-
claimed with ingenious modulations in a crowded
court. Surely a juryman, who has in his own
proper person probably at some time or other been
at somebody's feet, should be unable to listen to
the absurdest of these effusions without a pang of
sympathy. Is it not monstrous to affirm that no
love-letter that ever came into court deserved any
other sympathy than that of laughter and
derision "Consider," some heartless cynic says,
" the quality of love that can be described as
" 'only a question of damages.' What sort of love
"it must have been when it was returned,' that
" can haggle for damages when it is forsaken !
" Love the gift is love the debt,' says the poet ;
"but what shall wo say of • woman who interprets
" that exquisite line as a justification of damages
" What sum could represent the damages due for
" marrying a woman who could go to • jury to
" amen the damages for net marrying her ? " Pro-
bably, however, these brutal considerations did not
occur to the minds of the jury who on Tuesday
last made Doctor KIRKMAN, aged 70, pay 4001.
for not marrying Miss Siturrxzwonra, aged 30.
The respective ages of the parties are an im-
portant feature in such a case ; they take away
from it all that appears sacrilegious in the pecu-
niary assessment of a mutual passion ; and acquit
both parties of what in younger lovers would be
denounced by sentimentalists as a profanation of
the " bridal chambers of the heart."

Though we have no reason to believe that Cy-rip
was a lunatic at seventy, we may fairly conclude
that VEN US was a woman of business at thirty. At
seventy a man may be child again ; but at thirty a
woman should be a mighty huntress, and a dead
shot. Thirty, for the gentler portion of mankind
who are still among the proselytes at the gate of
the Temple of 111 MEN, is not the age of nonsense,
but of action, and sometimes of the heroic resolu-
tions of despair. If there be any truth in these
horrible doctrines, the Jury took a sound and sen-
sible view of Miss SHUTELEWORTICS demand when
they gave her 4001. as a compensation for the loss
of the venerable " changeling," the flames of
whose foolish heart had been so remorselessly put
out at the last moment, after the date of his
marriage was fixed, by his icily unsenti-
mental solicitors. Here was • lady of
thirty, enjoying • small independence, whose
mature affections have been trifled with to a shocking
extent by an old gentleman whom, in language
which reads like an epitaph, her eloquent counsel
depicts as " a man of taste, of a religious turn of
" mind ; he talked a good deal of chivalrous
" poetry, and he took • serious view of the re-
" sponsibility of his profession, and he spoke in '
" very high language of his position." Nor were
these his only or principal attractions. He kept his
carriage, and had 1,0001. a year, and was in •
highly respectable and influential position. More-
over, " although somewhat old in years, he was
" youthful in mind and body. His passions had
" not exhausted themselves. His wife had been
" a great invalid, and she died in the early part

"of 1862." It appears that it was also in 1862
that this aged but lively. gentiernan met the
plaintiff and became attached to her, "bat es
" account of his wife having so reoantly died L.

" was desirous of keeping the matter quiet." He
wrote to his beloved object "in rather warm
" language for his age," but "he spoke in plain
" language, for he said, I love you.' " In separa-
tion from her he said "he bore up like a hero." He
wrote his name forher in a Bible, and added a prayer
of his own composition ; he trusted to the wind to
carry a kiss to her; he took her about London, and
was received in her family as an accepted lover, and
as a " very nice old gentleman." It cannot be de-
nied that all these evidences of juvenile feeling
and friskiness were calculated to sharpen the lady's
disappointment, and to aggravate her claim for
damages. For, alas! a correspondence sprang up
between the lady's father and this " nice old gen-
" tleman " on the subject of settlements ; and the
accepted lover, who was so soon to be a defendant,
was fain to confess that he was "a sad hand in
" money matters," and could only offer to settle a
life policy of 5001. upon her. This sum was con-
sidered so insignificant by the lady's father that
the affair was bre-en off. After some time,
however, it was renewed, affectionate letters were
exchanged again, and " he spoke of the marriage
"day." When settlements were again talked of,
he offered to insure his life for an additional 5001.,
and some days after he wrote to his beloved :
" I should have gone wild if any money
" matters had been influential to part us : I love
" you dearly, most dearly." Charming illusions, too
bright to last ! The marriage day was fixed. And
then came a letter from this nice old gentleman's
solicitors to say the Doctor declined to sign the set-
tlements except with an alteration ; instead of
giving the lady the two policies of 500/. absolutely
in the event of his death, he now proposed to give
her only a life interest. More letters between the
lawyers ; but the nice old gentleman glen; as the
grave. Then, at length, the plaintiff writes to ask
his " intentions "—dreadful word. The Doctor
replies—no longer as the nice old gentleman, but as
the shrewd old man—that " at whatever sacrifice
"of feeling he dare not act upon his own
" responsibility, but under the guidance of his
" solicitors." The father of the plaintiff insists
that the objection is "frivolous," and, in short,
that the Doctor is shuffling ; and calls upon
him to fulfil his solemn promise. To this the
Doctor sternly rejoins that "he has
" left this painful business in the hands of
" his solicitors, and would only act upon their
" advice." And thus, " after a month," the
action for breach of promise is brought. The
counsel for defendant made the best of a bad case
by certifying that the old gentleman in his capa-
city of superintendent of a lunatic asylum was
himself—with his hone, and everything that was
his—a lunatic, on the principle that

Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat,
and that there was no chance of happiness for
the two parties, as their residence was to be •
lunatic asylum. The jury, however, under direc-
of the Court, were unable to accept this flattering
view of the transaction, and resolved to make a
nice—too nice—old gentleman pay salvage for the
very sound advice of his solicitors, and to admi-
nister the unromantic consideration of 4001. to the
blighted heart of • lady of 30 for the loss of the
reversionary interest in an old gentleman of 70—
not to speak of his living attractions as • well-pre-
served widower of a religions turn of mind.

at Court.

OSBORNE, Fra. IL

The Queen, with Prince Leopold and Prinoeas
Beatrice, drove out yesterday afternoon. Lieut.-Colonel
the Hon. D. de Roe attended on horseback.
The Bight Hoa. Edward Cardwell mired at Oabome
from London, and bad an sadism, of be: Majesty.,

Despatches woe waived at the Colonial-aloe yestonlay
from the Comber of Newfmusdland. Despatches were
sent to the Gnawers of Canada. Gibraltar, and Yalta.

TILE Panics AND nuarcrss or Wmas.— The
Prmoe aid Princess of Wales and suite left Programs at
2 o'clock yesterday afternoon for St. Leonards-on•Ses, where
they arrived at 10 minutes past 3. A telegram was imme-
diately forwarded from their royal highnesses to the Quote,
at Osborne, Womb's her Majesty of the admirable manes,
in which the journey bad been performed, and of the per-
fect safety with which the yours/ Dike of Cornwall had
made his find railway journey. The amagensests at
Hastings enabled the Prince and Prisms to leave their
travelling saloon and to proceed to their carriage outside
the station without the least interactioe. The Princess
looked rather pale, but her royal histamine viciously
smiled and bowed is acknowledgment of the vilest mints-
Moss of the few pmeons present. The Prince of Wales
immediately a:redacted her royal highness to *sir carriage,
which as it drove off was followed by another contain-
tog two nurses, one of whom carried the young prince ; but
as he was evidently in the enjoyment of a sound sleep,
mid was moreover carefully screened from the cold air
by a white cashmere wrapper, his fees was not visible.
The few streets peered through before reaching Starkey's
Royal Victoria Hotel, where a large suite of apartments
have begs takes for the accommodation of the Prince and
MOONS, were well filled with the inhabitants ; but on the
Marina, where the hotel is situated, the crowd was very
dense, end also very eathasisetic. The royal travellers were
received at the hotel by Mr. Starkey and by his daughter,
and were conducted to their apartments. It is expected
that their royal highnesses will remain at St. Leonard, for
a fortnight ; and that, during the time, the Prince au be
out with the East Saw: harriers. His hunters have already
reached St. Leonard*.

Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge,
the Princes Mary, the Grand Hoehn' of Meekleoberg,
Colooel Holmes Purvis, Captain Ellin sod nits, powered
the Adelphi Theatre with their presence last 'Twain, to
witoeia Nita Bateman's performance of Leah.

The Duke of Rutland intends to return from his
tour is Egypt towards the end of March or early is Apia.
Him gram has greatly benefited by his short residence in
the more genial climate.

The Duke of Newcastle is daily improving in
health. His genes has, dariag the last two day., taken
carriage drives, bet is still advised by Ith medical Mien-
dents to refrain from atteoding the cabinet councils.

The Countess of Ellesmere , with the young earl
and family, are expected to return home from the eoutioeet
early in April.

On Tuesday last the Rev. Charles Russell Cooke,
M.. 1., wee licensed to the perpetual curacy at Haverlaud,
in Norfolk is the eft of Edwd. Fellows*, Fag., on Use Do-
minatioo of the Lord Bishop of Norwich. On the same day
the Rev. William Meymott Farley was instituted to the
vicarage of Cretingbarn, in Suffolk, on the presentation at
her Must Gracious Majesty the Queen.

The first meeting of the select committee (joint
committee) on metropolitan railway communication, will be
held on the afternoon of Monday next, is the Painted
Chamber.

On Monday Mr. Paull will move for leave to
introduce a bill to facilitate the discharge of insolvent
debtors la certain area

On the 19th Mr. 'Richard Long will move "That
this hoot. views with regret the measures month adopted
for the purposed increasing our track with Japan cad
China."

Alderman Sidney intends, on going into com-
, mitten of supply, to "pall aideetion to the inexpedieeey of
immune( the eaves pirates wow wider seatesoe at death is
the goal of Narrate, within the metropolis."
Viscount Enfield will ask the Secretary of State
for the Home Department, ea Monday, whether hie atten-
tion bre hem tailed lo the report of the Children Employ-
ment Ceensimiemes ; tad, if es, whether he Meade to
propose any monism founded apes the report of the said'
comoilsidoc

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.
THE OVERLAND MAIL.
We have received letters and papers in anticipa-
tion of the overland mail dated Madras, Jan. 15 ;
Calcutta, Jan. 9 ; Hong Kong, Jan. 1; and Mel-
bourne, Dec. 24.