The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-05 00:00:00

strove so grossly to have Mrs. YELVERTON
branded with an infamous designation, with
the very designation that DESDEMON A could
alone, as a true woman, repeat by an ela-
borated periphrasis, as " that name he said, my
lord, did say I was !"—even Sergeant ARMSTRONG
while thus energetically earning the fee by which
the brief he held in behalf of the son of Lord
AVONMORE was accompanied—even he could only
compensate himself, so to speak, for the fascination
exercised over his unwilling senses by the Hon.
Mrs. YELVERTON, by apostrophising her as a Syren
and an Enchantress !
Those three wholly and absolutely undeni-
able facts, those three, by this time, perfectly
self-evident propositions above particularised,
would of themselves almost suffice to " point
the moral" of this tale of passion, and upon
Major YELVERTON'S part, as the verdict has
now proved, of actual and heinous criminality.
Nothing, not a hint, in the way of blame syllabled
from first to last, by any one, against the nominal
plaintiff! Everything, on the contrary, in the
way of scorn and condemnation uttered against the
defendant, upon all sides indiscriminately—against
that defendant who has now been formally pro-
nounced by the Dublin Jury guilty of Bigamy
together with all its concomitant criminalities and
meannesses. And besides, the contrast thus pre-
sented to view in court and out of court, in the
general feeling and instinct it might almost be
called actuating all alike in regard to the plaintiff
and the defendant the intended victim
of the latter eliciting, from one and all,
without exception, nothing but a mingled,
and almost passionate, sense of sympathy and admi-
ration. Hence, indeed—from the prevalence and the
intensity of these latter feelings—the extraordinary
scenes witnessed in court, again and again during
the progress of the trial, the ovations repeatedly
given to the leading counsel for the plaintiff, and that
rapturous outburst of acclamations which greeted
the announcement made by the Foreman of the
Grand Jury, when, last evening, delivering into
court the verdict found by himself and his brother
jurymen : the verdict pronouncing to be
good and valid, both the Scotch and
Irish marriages, and accompanying with
that decision the extraordinary declaration, surely
the most extraordinary in its way, ever pronounced
by any jury, namely, that Major the Hon. WILLIAM
CIIARLES YELVERTON is—a Roman Catholic !
Anything like a detailed narrative of the incidents
of this singular romance of real life would, we are
fully conscious, be nothing less at this moment than
utterly superfluous. With those incidents the vast
majority of our readers must long since have become
perfectly well familiarised. The accidental meet-
ing, first of all, on beard the homeward bound
steamboat from Boulogne. The hardly less acci-

dental renewal of their acquaintance through
correspondence sometime afterwards, when
Major (then Captain) YELVERTON was at Malta
and Miss LONGWORTH at Naples. The second
meeting, namely, that which took place at
the Convent at Galata during the period of the
Crimean war, when Major YELVERTON was there
as an officer of Artillery, and Miss LONGWORTH
as a Postulant among the Sisters of Charity.
The frequent interviews subsequently taking
place between the destined lovers, afterwards
to be [the Grand Jury has said it ! in their
verdict] the destined husband and wife,
doubly united as such by a solemnly
repeated marriage ceremonial. The frequent inter-
views which took place between them after that
second meeting (the one at Galata)—those inter-
views occurring day after day, when they met►
as guests under the sacred roof-tree of the mili-
tary hut of that good soldier and gentleman,
General STRAUBENZEE Miss LONGWORTH being
at that period a habitual guest there as the friend
and intimate of the General's wife, Mrs. STRAIIBEN-
Z EE —Major YELVERTON the frequent, the constant,
the daily guest, there also, as the General's friend,
as friend of the house, as British officer, as English
gentleman ! The second steamboat interview be-
tween Major YELVERTON and Miss LONGWORTH,
when the latter terminated her visit to the good
soldier's hut before Sebastopol that second
steamboat interview, during which the
lady's . honour was all but ♦iolated by
by that Honourable Brother Officer and Gentleman
who had slipped back to her side after grasping
the hand of her then recent guardian and protector,
General STRAUBENZ EE. Incident after incident—
are not the scenes of this romantic drama familiar
to the majority beyond any necessity whatever for
their recapitulation ? Until the meeting again of
the lovers—far away from Galata—down at
Leith : until their Scotch marriage in Edinburgh :
until their Irish marriage at Rostrevor : until their
separation at Bordeaux. Such, it will be born in
recollection, were the salient points in the argument
upon both sides, founded upon this melanchoy
history of love and passion consecrated by solemn
nuptials—nuptials satisfactorily and elaborately
reiterated—the love still true on the part of the
wife bound thus in lawful wedlock—
the passion exhausted on the part of the
now actual Bigamist, the then intending Seducer,
this Hon. son and heir of the present Lord AVON-
MORE.

Conspicuous, or rather it must be said pre-
eminent, among the many painful passages in
this deplorable history is beyond an instant's doubt
that in regard to which FATHER MOONEY
appeared during the trial as chief witness in his
capacity as the officiating clergyman upon the
occasion of the Irish marriage at Rostrevor. That
rev. gentleman in the very words in which he is
constrained to give his evidence while standing
there in the witness box—that rev. gentleman
in the very words falling from his lips pronounces
his own severest condemnation. There needs
no other, no-severer sentence of reprehension to be
pronounced upon him in this lamentable particular.
When he is compelled to exclaim with evident
anguish that rather than do what he had done in
regard to the marriage certificate he would sooner
have cut off his right hand, he leaves us power-
less to speak of his. proceedings in any
stronger language. And it iff all in ',min,
too, for the nterests, of that , disgraced and
disgraceful defendant ! The marriage ceremony in
regard to the arrangement and even to the very
designation of which there was manifest during
the course of the cross-examinations so much
that was to say the least of it, equivocal
—that very marriage ceremony has now been
formally pronounced, as it could only be pro-
nounced, good and valid, as alike final and binding
before GOD and man, in the face of earth and
heaven. In that decision the whole passion and
pathos of this- romantic story are epitomised.
The profligate seducer—as the defendant alone de•
signed to be—is driven out of the court of justice as
the convicted bigamist. The intended victim of
his lust and treachery is declared, in the same
breath, to be his lawful wife, his wife twice over
first by the Scotch, and afterwards by the Irish
marriage—going forth again into the world
with her long-outraged reputation triumphantly
vindicated—receiving, Heaven knows ! no dignity
whatever from, rather-, h shOuld be said, re-
claiming in some measure to honour by her own I