The Liverpool Standard, and General Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-08-08 00:00:00

of Garrick in the dilemma

Reynolds

[floe alised,

weep, are ind

Not one, but every

called into play. You 'laugh and
,nd amused, by turns. You would

had occurred in a lunatic asylum, but it is incredible that
the tragedy or farce which we are about to relate should
have been acted by men and women whose sanity never
seems to have been called in question. Great, however,

power of love, wonderful are the complexities and
mischances which we owe to the little tyrant who fasci-
nates and kills unhappy mortals. And this is the only
key to the mystery. Love, in revenge, perhaps, for one
ill-directed shaft, car

.tted the terrible havoc which has
By way of explanation,
t by Colonel Butler
certain

e may state that the action is
rainst Lord Mountgarret, fb

1r the recovery <

estates, and that the-question turns on the legitimacy of
the plaintiff. The facts, as stated by the Attorney-General,
are as follow :—The hero of the story is Henry Butler,
third son of the late Earl of Kilkenny, and father to
Colonel Butler. Like Don Juan, this gentleman seems to
have passed his life in achieving conquests over women.
He came, he saw, he won. His first success was with the
wife of a gentleman who lived in nn adjoining county,
Re eloped with this lady, left the country, and was out-.
Afte- -•me time, the victim lost her charms, and
to die in misery. Freed from this
Tor roams over sea and land—far away,
he East or West—but everywhere leaving
self in broken hearts and outraged rights.
1809 Henry Butler is found at Brighton.
a charming widow," Mrs. Colebrook, fas-
cinating beyond compare, and possessed of a jointure of
about £1,500 a year, which, however, was charged with
the stipulation that she should lose all if slue married
again. Henry Butler met the widow-4n other wOrds,
he wen her heart. The jointure was a difficulty in the
way, but love is the great master, and poor Mrs. Colebrook
fell. In 1809 a child was born in Cadogan-place, in this
metropolis, whither the lady had been removed, • 9.7.1
where she saw no ere but her paramour and, an old ser-
vant of the family; called Sarah Stride. This child died,
-*Wards another was horn. It was "then
dinburgh, apparently for the ptarpose
e, privatety married. The marriage was wanted to
„.,itimize the child, and privacy was necessary, in -order
to secure the jointure. The visit was an 'unlucky one.
Another Irishman, a Mr. Taaffe, appears on the scene,
also fascinating, also himself stibdued by the "--
Mrs. ColebroOl. At first sight

I the seducer left h

b©nd, there

m
traces of hit

In the yea
I They

and the year aft

resolved-to go to

he should

arms of

ie fell in love -with her,
in supplanting Sutler. On one occasion
stnt from Edinburgh, and

IT husband was
kr.sra, 1,0,1 .14

e returned
.efused admission. The new kve was pre-
- 's suspicions, however, had been aroused,
He is refused admission,

dominant. Butl
and ht

'turn suadenl.

is to break into his own house, and finds Mr. Taaffe
eked 'up in his mistress's bedroom. At this crisis in the
oryt utler insists upon being married there and then.
*' very prudently got out of the way, and the mar-
perl'ormed in the presence of their
ritit.all. Fora short time after the
lived together as
A to be absent

:ereniony wa
But this

age the happy pair seem to hav _
'lnd wife. But presently Butler is Wiz

again, and his wife (if ''we must really rail her so) forth•
with summons Mr. %He. The two fad from Scotland,
altd took refuge at Whitby, were married shortly after at
Preston, and lived together until Mr. Taaffe discovered,
what he seems to have been pret.rionsly ignorant of, that
'the woman he had married was the wife, according to the
Scotch law, of Henry Butler. The rause, therefore, will
probably be decide&fiy the evidenee4 Sarah Stride, thy
only one of the witnesses to the marriage r

• now alive, and
by the depositions of Mr. Taaffe. taken at Zero, in Italy.
Meanwhile what hed become of Henry Butler? Faithful
to his mission, he has -scampered eff to Harrogate. At
the Green Dragon Inn he meets With a Miss Harrison, a
lovely woman, and an heiress. -is the old story. The
lady fell in love at first sight, -and after some correspond-
ence with Mrs. Colebrook alias .Mrs. Butler, alias 'Mrs.
Taaffe, she became Mrs. Butler. 'lt was obvious that Mrs.
Colebrook Wished to disavow her marriage with !Bader,
and afterwards-she even persuaded Sarah Stride to swear
that the marriage had never taken place, in order to estab-
lish herself ,aslhe lawful Wife of Mr. Taaffe.
ever, are the -main circumstances of this extraordinary
case, and we ask our readers whether the brain of -man
has ever devised-its like? Perhaps the most remarkable
circumstancetin the Whole case is the easy way in :which
an Irish gentleman 60 of years ago treated another Irish
gentleman whom he found,hythe bedroom of his Mistress.
It is never -hinted throughout that Butler so much as
challenged the man who would have been regarded by
most husbands, or would-be husbands, as the object of
pitiless -vengeance.—Globe.