The Sun.
London, England, 1858-08-24 00:00:00

REMARKABLE CASE OF LIBEL,

At the Bristol assizes, yesterday, before Mr. Baron Clan-
nell and a special jury, the following remarkable case was

tried :

YESCOMBE AND ANOTHER v. WALTER SAVAGE

LANDOR.
Mr. Slade, Mr. M. Smith, and Mr. Buller were for the
plaintiffs; Mr. Phinn and Mr. Collier for the defence.
Mr. Buller opened the pleadings. The Rev. Morris Yes-
combe and Mary Jane, his wife, were the plaintiffs, and
Mr. Walter Savage Landor, the defendant. The declara-
tion contained four counts. The first three charged the
defendant with having printed and published certain libels,
and the last count was on a contract. It alleged that a
former action had been brought by the plaintiffs against the
defendant, which had been compromised, on an undertak-
ing by the defendant that he never would repeat the
charges again, and it charged the breach of that contract.
The defendant, by his pleadings, denied the publication,
denied his undertaking, and denied the breach.
Mr. Slade, in opening the case, said the Rev. Mr. Yes-
combe was a clergyman of the Church of England ; he was
a married gentleman with a family of five children, and had
moved in respectable circles in the city of Bath. The de-
fendant was Mr. Walter Savage Landor, the celebrated
author and poet, and of course any matter emanating from
the pen of such a writer—unless it was by way of joke—
could not be passed over, but must have serious notice taken
of it. The present action was brought for the purpose of
clearing the character of Mrs. Yescombe from a most false,
foul, and malicious libel, which had come from the pen of
Mr. Landor, and which was contained in a book which he
had published, called "Dry Sticks, fagotted byW.S.Landor."
That book had become a library book. He had asked
in vain for any assignable motive which could have
actuated Mr. Landor in the course he had pur-
sued, for, up to May, 1857, he and Mr. and Mrs. Yes-
combe were on the most friendly terms. The only possible
motive which could be assigned was the course which Mrs.
Yescombe had thought it right to pursue with regard to a
young lady of 15 or 16, who was the daughter of a gentle-
man residing next door to her, and who, in order to assist
her in her education, she kindly allowed to participate in
the education of her own children, and become a part of her
own family; and because Mr. Yescombe thought it better
far the interests of that young lady that she should be sent
to Cheltenham would seem to have arisen all the venom of
Mr.Landor. From that mement Mr.Landor began to pen his
scandalous libels. In the first place he put out a pamphlet
called " Walter Savage Landor and the Hon. Mrs. Yes-
combe," in which he charged that lady with six offences
of the most heinous kind ; such, in fact, as it was
impossible for her to pass over without taking steps
upon them. In a limited circle like Bath the libels circu-
lated with great rapidity. The pamphlet charged Mrs.
Yescombe with six distinct offences, of which be would give
them the heads. In the first place Mr. Landor charged
Mrs. Yescombe that at a trial which took place in the
County Court at Bath, between Mr. Yescombe and a Mr.
Roche, she committed wilful and deliberate perjury;
second, that on one occasion he had given Mrs. Yescombe
£l3 for the purpose of paying for some music given to the
young lady, and that Mrs. Yescombe deliberately purloined
half the money; third, that she extracted a£s note which
he bad put into a letter for the purpose of being sent ofi to
a nurse. The fourth charge was that a tradesman of the
name of Jolly had sent Mrs. Yescombe a receipt for some
goods which she had had at his shop, that the money was
❑ot returned with the receipt, and Mrs. Yescombe took
advantage of the receipt having been sent, and refused to
pay the money; fifth, that she was in the shop of a
shoemaker who resides at Bath, when 149. were on
the counter, and that in some inexplicable way
7s. disappeared; and 6th, that she had obtained £lOO from
the young lady by false pretences. Those deliberate charges
were piloted and circulated through Bath, and it became
necessary that Mrs. Yescombe should either appeal to a court
cf justice or insist ou Mr. Landor utterly withdrawing
the libels. Mrs. Yescombe communicated with her solici-
tor. Mr. Slack wrote a letter urging him to withdraw the
charges, and requiring him, if he declined to du so, to com-
municate the name of his solicitor. That letter was written
on the 12th June, and no answer was returned to It; but
another pamphlet was published by Mr. ;Lander, i❑
which that person chose to make a most indecent attack on
Mr. Slack. The work was called " Walter Savage Lander
Threatened," and the opening passage was, " I am
threatened as below. The writer's name is no invention of
any author of farce, of comedy, or satire, bet is really
and truly Slack.' Whether it has au alias I never
ascertained or inquired. It will be unlawful to order
a chairman to cudgel this fellow for his insolence."
After that no other course remained to be pursued by
Mrs. Yescombe than to bring her action for libel in a court
of justice, where the libeller might, if he pleased, prove
the truth of his charges. The case went on near to trial,
briefs were prepared and counsel retained, when a gentle-
man narsed Forster, a gentleman of some eminence in the
literary world, anti who was also editor of the Examiner,
came down from London as an intimate friend of Mr.
Lander, and presented himself on the 25th July at Mr.
Slack's office at Bath, and endeavoured to see if the matter
might not he settled by Mr. Lawlor making an apology,
and, after negotiations, the following was signed by Mr.
Landor and tendered to Mr. Slack :—" The two published
statements concerning Mrs. Yescombe, and entitled,
Walter Savage Lander and the Hon. Mrs. Yescombe,'
and t Mr. Landor Threatened,' having, at the request of tra3
friends, been referred to Mr. Forster to institute an inquiry
into the circumstances connected therewith, and it having
been this day reported tome, as the result of such inquiry, in
Mr. Forster's opinion, that I had no sufficient authority on
which to make the charges affecting the honesty and charac-
ter of Mrs. Yescombe, I hereby fully and unreservedly
withdraw all such charges contained in the statements above
referred to.—Bath, 27th July, 1857." When the apology
was submitted to Mr. Slack he took objection to the word
"sufficient," and also expressed his wi-h that Mr. Landor
should express some regret. Mr. Forster assured him that
the apology was ample, and on Mr. Slack refusing to receive
the apolcgy unless accompanied by an undertaking not to
repeat the libel, the document was sent back to Mr. Landor
by Col. Brockman, and such an undertaking having been
added, Mr. Slack gave a letter of acceptance. The ink was
hardly dry with which the apology was written when a
series of most beastly, disgusting, and offensive anonymous
letters were written by Mr. Lander and sent to this unfor-
tunate lady. The first was dated the 4th August, 1857, and
was addressed "To the Hon. Mrs. Yescombe, 21, Green-
park, Bath." It was supposed to be a sonnet to a Mr.
Clark, the surgeon who attended Mrs. Yescombe, and
was in these terms :

" The weakest of the devil's imps,
Younger or older, seldom limps ;
Come, Church, prepare the sable pills,
Yescomhe's are common human ills.
I limped a I.?. )low-sufferer
Last year, and know the cure for her ;
Cone, my good fellow, pound away,
And salivate without delay."

That letter was followed by another, dated February 9
METAMORPHOSES.
" A shy gazelle (so once you thought),
Turned to a jackal], soon was taught
By a lean lioness to prowl
Before her, and give up the whole."
And also:—

" To A BATH LADY WHOSE OATH A JUDGE AND JURY
DOUBTED.
" Heap not fresh coals upon your head, for there
Lies no protection in the scanty hair."
Then came another letter addressed to "Camas, conva-
lescent," and in his work he gave a meaning to the name as
the female of Cain :
" Our race, 0 Caina, we have run,
From all besetting perils free ;
I with Apollo now have done,
And you (I hope) with Mercury."
Besides those letters, there was one of which Mr. Yes-
combe would speak, and which was so horribly bad, so
offensive in every way, that it had to be destroyed. Bad as
those letters were, the plaintiff would have taken no notice
of them had not Mr. Landor followed them up by the pub-
lication of a work called " Dry Sticks, fagotted by Walter
Savage Landor." In the original copy of the work was a
poem addressed to an unnatural mother, which ran thus—
" Unnatural mother !
Why hasten to smother
Nl4 hatever is fairest and fondest in child ?
In hell's bitter water
You plunge ycur own daughter,
Nor have wept when she wept, nor have smiled when she
smiled.
" If sorrows assail you,
Who then will bewail you ?
The true and the tender for ever is gone.
Unnatural mother !
Ah ! never another
Will love and lament you as she would have done."
The learned counsel was proceeding to express regret that
the defendant should have so degraded his great intellect
when

.........
Mr. Baron Channell suggested whether, as there was no
plea of justification, some course ought not to be taken by
the defendant.
Mr. Phinn said his lordship knew what were the respon-
sibilities of counsel. He could only say that be had sought'
for authority and sought it in vain.
Mr. Slade went on to say that Mr. Landor had with-
drawn the poem last read from his book, because some
Lbiasnpd
friend had told Lim that it was a libel, and he expressed his
poem
er then:a;
wp austtibnian thesegl
p recoursemesot
rite
o:T:rI:n: t o
regret to the publisher that be could not publish it. Mr.
of Mother Yeicombe, he used the word " pestcombe," and
a flimsy artifice, and instead
Isilemlwpsinygouwubperaet
yeovuerlyatfeallyl ,
:31:onuorn
pocket,
otleekne denies
__
Mother` Tun PILFERED TO THE PILFERER.
You were ever true to - lies;
So the father of them all
found
Showing artnlet, showing locker,
Twit f;oor nurse's lost five pound.