The Sun.
London, England, 1854-11-22 00:00:00

MISS THORNHILL AND HER LOVER.

The Lord Chancellor's judgment in the case I
" Thornhill v. Thornhill," reported yesterday, may
furnish Mr. Craik with an additional chapter for
his " Romance of the Peerage," in the next edition
of that ingenious work. The sayings and doings
of the fair ward in Chancery, of her enamoured or
" hard-up " suitor, of his helpful sister, and,
" though last not least," of the great dignitary
.of
the law himself, are as piquant as anything in
Grammont, Horace Walpole, or Le Sage. And
they were developed in the Chancellor's prefatory
elucidation of the grounds of his decision with an
imparts
to skill in grouping that absolutely
to them a high dramatic effect. The judgment
scene was a splendid tableau vivant.
Much of the interest centres, of course, in the
lover, Mr. George Augustus Hamilton Chichester—
what a name for the author of a fashionable novel !
Mr. Chichester is of high and reverend descent—
the
nephew of an Irish earl, and the son of an Irish
dean. Yet, like Milton, Mr. Chic,
h ester " the
lowliest duties on himself doth lay., The noble
youth does not disdain to draw the salary of a
clerkship of the peace in Ireland. He is, indeed,
a rather peculiar clerk of the peace : the public is
f Amiliar with absentee Irish landlords, but absentee
Irish clerks of the peace were little if at all heard
of till the publicity given to the adventures of Mr.
Chichester revealed the fact of their existence.
The nobility of his connexions and the emoluments
of his office notwithstanding, the gay Mr. Chiches-
ter was deep in debt, plagued by duns, and other
teazua g incidents of such a state of existence.
At his sister's house he encountered a fair heiress,
who unluckily happened to be also a ward of
Chancery ; but difficulties only rouse lovers to
exertion. Whether Mr. Chichester's affections
were won by the lady or her acres does not clearly
appear. He writes indeed to his Clara in touching,
terms,
but he has also been in the habit of inter-
changing jokes with his friends, and even with her
gamekeeper about the fine sporting he would have
over her lands. And he was indiscreet enough to
connect his first overtures to the lady under whose
charge his mistress was placed with an allusion to
his embarrassed circumstances. Forbidden the
house, as poor lovers are apt to be, he solicited and
obtained midnight interviews, talked of Gretna-
green, tried to allay the lady's fear of the law by
quoting the opinions of eminent Chancery barris-
ters he had consulted, and, when she hinted at the
feeling he had expressed on the elopement of a
fair cousin of his, told her that for a noble lady to
run away with a roturier was a sad faux-pas, but
for an heiress of plebeian blood to run away
with the scion of a noble house was perfectly
right and proper.
The mistress appears to have been as prudent
and calculating as the lover. She evidently had a
hankering after a match into a noble family, for
she spoke to the swain from her bedroom window
at midnight, and argued the elopement question
with the acuteness and forecast of a lawyer. A sly
puss too she appears to have been, for with a face
of candour and innocence she showed her guar-
dians letters from her suitor's sister, concealing the
fact that between the lines traced in ink were lines

traced in lemon juice, which remained invisible till
she, by holding the paper to the fire, should bring
them out for her own private perusal. The Lord
Chancellor expressed himself rapturously about the
" proper" conduct and" good feeling" of the young
lady. What privileges rich war-is of Chancery
enjoy In what terms would the Lord Chancellor
have spoken of any portionless milliner who talked
to a young man from her bedroom window at mid-
night, and deceived her guardians in such fashion
as has been mentioned ?
This well-matched pair had a confidante, as dex-
terous as any chambermaid in comedy or romance.
Lady Ferrers it was who devised the clandestine
correspondence in lemon juice ; Lady Ferrers it
was who, when forbidden to correspond with the
young lady, wrote to her brother letters meant to
be shown to his mistress, for the purpose of allay-
ing her fears as to the consequences of an elope-
ment.

This pleasant intercourse continued for some
time. The young lady, over her crochet, indulged
in visions of a coroneted sister-in-law. The young
gentleman, smoking his cigar, dreamed of future
&taws in the well-stocked preserves of his bride.
The sympathising sister taxed her ingenuity to aid
the amorous pair, and derived unutterable pleasure
from her exertions, for intrigue (we use the word
in its most plitonic and least exceptionable sense)
is, like virtue, its own reward. But one unlucky
day, the lady appointed by the Chancellor to act
as duenna to the fair inamorata discovered the frag-
ments of a letter which revealed the secret of the
lemon juice correspondence. The acid entered
into her soul, and all was made known to the
Lord Chancellor. Full of indignation at the
thought that a clerk of the peace, though of
noble lineage, whose whole property was as the
French say passive, should aspire to the portion
of a ward of Chancery, his lordship donned his
wig and summoned the culprits to his awful
presence. What passed at these interviews may
never be known—a close dark ,veil of secrecy is
dropped over them. One shudders and thinks of
Mrs. Radcliffe's Inquisition scenes. But the Chan-
cellor resolved toindulge the public, and add dignity
to his solemn award, by inviting all the world to
be witnesses of his judgment. Towards the fair
ward of Chancery he was lenient. As already no-
ticed, he praised her for acting properly and with
good feeling. How to deport himself towards the
naughty Lady Ferrers appears to have been a sad
puzzler for the good man. At first he declared,
"I do not think I am called upon to make any
order to commit Lady Ferrers. This is a conclu-
sion at which I have arrived with very great doubt
and anxiety. lam not at all confident that lam
discharging my duty." After presing away for an
hour or two, however, his lordship took heart of
grace, and ventured to think that he was discharg-
ing his duty. "Having said thus much, it may
be asked am I not flinching in the discharge of my
duty if I abstain from committing Lady Ferrers ?
Well, I think lam not." And that for the suffi-
cient reason that the countess had cleverly kept on
the windy side of the law. She was just out of
reach of the Chancellor's claws ; he could touch
but he could not catch her. There stood the clever,
naughty lady, laughing at the baffled and bewil-
dered judge. But if he could not punish, ho made
himself ample amends by scolding her. He de-
clared her conduct was "disgraceful, and must for
ever lower her in the society of her equals," a de-
nunciation which, it is to be feared, she and her
equals will endure with great equanimity. De-
prived of two victims, the concentrated indigna-
tion of the judge fell upon the devoted head of
the third culprit. " The Tipstaff," said the
Chancellor, "will now immediately take Mr. Chi-
chester into custody." His lordship added, " the
order will be drawn out in the course of
the morning." The judge's impatience to exe-
cute justice could not wait for tedious forms.
The denouement is more impressive than any in
dramatic art, except, perhaps, that of Schiller's
Don Carlos," where the King and father tells the
Inquisitor to do his duty—" I have done mine."
We have done our utmost to work ourselves up
to the pitch of excitement of the irate Chancellor,
but we honestly confess without succeeding. We
could as easily be indignant at the gosasner
shadows which flit across the stage in Congreve's
or Farquhar's plays, as with any of the persona who
figure in this newest " romance of the peerage."
We do not seek to extenuate the conduct of a gen_
tiemen, who, after squandering his means, stool
to pocket ie emoluments of a judicial appoint-
ment which he does not—perhaps cannot—ds-
charge. We do not seek to palliate the equivocal
cleverness of his sister, with her letters half in
common ink to be shown, half in lemon juice to
be read in private, and her presents of baskets
with billets-doux, written on linen, stitched into
their lining. Such conduct on the part of the son
and daughter of a reverend Dean is not calculated
impresst the public with a high idea of the man-
soe
r th• Which the dignified clergy] of the Irish
Church
bring up their children. But, after all, nothineworse-
not
a marriage appears to have
been contemplated.t If there was any love on either
side it does n
pulsationsof a ball-room
to have exceeded the faint
a high connexionr°ar flirtation. The lady wanted
; e gentlemen the means of off old scores, and living comfortably in
future. Two such cool and calculating heads, who
proposed to contract the marriage tie with a due
regard to the only kind of
not likely
of which their
natures are capable, were
Their to
confidantelead a very
may
life together. unhappy
affection of a sister in pal-
plead the overpowering
liation of the rather equivocal manner in which she
set about patching up her brother's fortune.
e
And
as for the awful Head of the Law, hie ire appears
to have been kindled exclusively by the presume_
tion of the poor clerk of the peace, who dared
raise his oyes to a wealthy heiress, and to be guilty
of that worst sin in the eyes of a Chancellor, c,
tempt of Court." Possibly the lady is at this mo-
ment singing, sotto voce, "Heigh for ane-and-
twenty, Tam ;" the lover consoling the tedious
hours of imprisonment by dreaming over his recep-
tion when next he throws himself at her feet to tell
what he has suffered for her sake. It may be a
marriage yet for all that has come and gone ; and
perhaps the reconciled Chancellor may smooth his
rugged brow and consent to accept of a dinner
from the penitent pair.
The story is perhaps not altogether creditable to
the delicacy and honesty of our aristocracy, but it
will be well if the circles in which it happened
never afford gro3s.x themes for the tongue of cen-
sure.---Daily News.