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thought Mr. Jervoise wholly incompetent to any legal disposition of his fortune, and would not have witnessed any such act.

The Attorney-General made an able reply, classing all these inco herencies under the head of folly, rather than madness; and repeating the quotation of Horace, that the man had the right of riches to commit them.

Lord Ellenborough gave a most impartial charge, and recapitulated the whole evidence. He told the jury of the law of lucid interval; and put it to them, whether Mr. Jervoise had not shewn himself perfectly competent to transact the business in question, a just and a deliberate act. The jury, after a very short communication with each other, found a verdict for the plaintiff.

THE BERKELEY CAUSE.

No trial during the present year engrossed so great a share of the public attention as that conducted before the house of lords respecting the legitimacy of the eldest son of the late Lord Berkeley. The printed evidence in this matter is too voluminous to admit of even an abridged view of it in this place; but from the most material parts of it we shall select such particu⚫ lars as may serve to give an idea of the principal circumstances on which the decision was founded.

On the death of the Earl of Berkeley in 1810, it became a question which of his sons was entitled to be called to the house of peers as successor to his father in his dignities. From common re

port an opinion prevailed that the four eldest sons had been born before the marriage of the deceased lord to their mother, the present Countess; but this lady averred; that although the public solemni zation of their marriage took place subsequently to the birth of these children, yet that there had been a concealed marriage previous to their birth; and to prove the truth of this assertion, an entry in the parish register of Berkeley was produced, which, it was said, for certain reasons of Lord Berkeley, had been written on a leaf detached from the rest of the register, and pasted down in the book to be produced when required. It is to be observed that the Countess of Berkeley was the daughter of a person in mean circumstances in Gloucestershire, who by her beauty bad attracted the notice of his lordship, and who certainly had lived many years with him in the ostensible character of a mistress. The clergyman said to have officiated at this secret marriage, a Mr. Hupsman, was dead; and besides his name, and those of the parties themselves, no signatures appeared to the register except that of W. Tudor, brother to the lady (who had assumed that name instead of his paternal name of Cole) and the mark of one Barnes, who could not be found. Besides this register, the date of which was the 30th of March, 1785, there was produced a register of the pub lication of banns between the parties in November and December 1784, signed by the same clergyman.

The direct evidence for the marriage lay in a small compass Lady Berkeley swore that the bame of Elizabeth Cole, affixed to

the

the register, was her hand-writing, and William Tudor swore the same respecting his signature; and both swore that they were written at the time when the marriage was solemnized.

The business was brought for ward in the house of lords at an early period of the session, on the petition of William Fitzharding Berkeley, stating himself to be the eldest son and heir apparent of the late Earl of Berkeley, and therefore entitled to succeed him in his honours and dignities. As it was known that the earl had been publicly married in May 1796, to the present countess, and the son of that marriage, born in October 1796, being a minor, the house addressed the Prince Regent to appoint one of the law officers of the crown to take care of his interests; and the cause being brought on, the solicitor-general and Mr. Harrison attended on his behalf, while Mr. Serjeant Best, Sir Sam. Romilly, and Mr. A. Moore, acted as counsel for the claimant.

The mass of evidence produced went to prove that the alleged publication of banns in 1784, and marriage in 1785, could not possibly have taken place. It was proved that Lord Berkeley, in his own hand writing, minuted the form in which the baptism of his children by Lady Berkeley, then living with him under the name of Miss Tudor, should be registered, which, before 1796, was uniformly as the illegitimate children of the Earl of Berkeley and Mary Cole; that his lordship, in obtaining a licence for his marriage in 1796, swore himself to be a bachelor, and in the affidavit Mary Cole was denominated a spinster, and

that in the minute for the baptism of the child born after this marriage, his lordship in his own hand-writing termed him Lord Dursley, son of the Earl and Countess of Berkeley. The life of her ladyship was traced from the death of her father, through various services, to one which she did not quit till the end of December 1784; and evidence was adduced to shew that she was not acquainted with his lordship till late in 1785. The name of Augustus Thomas Hupsman signed to the registry of marriage was declared to be not like his bandwriting, and the rest of the regis try was proved to be in the handwriting of Lord Berkeley. Witnesses also attested that William Tudor did not go by that name in March 1785, but assumed it after that period. The attestations by persons intimate in the family of Lord Berkeley, that Miss Tudor, prior to the marriage in 1796, was never considered as Lady Berkeley, were numerous; and the depositions of some witnesses went so far as to a disavowal on the part of Lord Berkeley, and even of Lady Berkeley, of being married previously to that time. The testimony, of all the most precise and important, was that of the Marquis of Buckingham, given, as he asserted, with great pain to himself, and only in obedience to the orders of the house. He had long lived in confidential habits with Lord Berkeley, and he deposed that his lordship had at various times communicated to him the circumstance of his living with a person, the mother of children by him, to whom he was not married. Lord Berkeley had often

pressed

pressed him to accept the office of guardian to these children in case of his death, which he had uniformly declined, assigning their illegitimacy as a reason. Lord Berkeley mentioned as a matter that dwelt much on his mind, that from the circumstances of his family, the castle and honour of Berkeley would probably after his death be severed from the title, and not go to his brother, Admiral Berkeley; and he at length sug gested to the marquis a plan for preventing this separation, which was, that a daughter of his, one of these illegitimate children (then a young child), should marry the son of the admiral, in which case he would settle the castle and honour of Berkeley upon that marriage. To an objection, that probably a daughter so educated as this was likely to be, would not be approved for a wife to the admiral's son, Lord B. replied, that Mrs. Berkeley (the admiral's wife) might take the young lady, and educate her herself. The Marquis

was empowered to make this proposition, which came to nothing, the daughter soon after dying.This conversation took place in the end of 1792 or the beginning of 1793.

The Marquis further deposed to his belief that the words in the register of marriage in 1785 annexed to the mark of Richard Barns, and also the signature, Augustus Thomas Hupsman, were written by Lord Berkeley; and his evidence, in confirmation of so many others, decided the House of Lords to pro nounce, nem. dis. the judgment, "That the claimant, William Fitzharding Berkeley, had not made good his claim to the titles, &c. of Earl of Berkeley." This determination of consequence sets aside the pretended marriage in 1785, and illegitimates the children born before 1796.

Several other reports of various and important law-cases will be found briefly recorded in the Chronicle.

PATENTS IN 1811.

Mr. William Clerk's (Edinburgh for a newly constructed grate for preventing smoke, and regulating heat.

Mr. David Meade Randolph's (Golden-square) for a method of manufacturing all kinds of boots, shoes, &c. by means of a substitute for thread made of hemp, flax, or other yarns.

Mr. John Kent's (Southampton) for a new method of moving all

kinds of goods or materials to high buildings, or from deep places.

Mr. Winsor's (Pall Mall) for improvement upon his former oven stove for carbonizing all kinds of raw fuel, and for extracting the oil, acid, tar, gas, &c.

Mr. Thomas Mead's (Yorkshire) for methods of making circular or rotative steam-eugines upon an entire new principle.

Mr. Edward Shorter's (Wap

ping) for an apparatus for working pumps.

Mr. Bryan Donkin's (Bermondsey) for a pen of new construction.

Mr. David Matthew's (Rother. hithe) for an improved method of building locks, and for opening and shutting the same.

Mr. John White's (Westminster) for the discovery of a certain substance which is capable of being converted into statues, artificial stone, melting -pots, bricks, tiles, and every description of pottery.

Mr. Richard Wilson's (Lambeth) for sundry apparatus or machinery for the manufacture of felt or stuff hats.

Mr. Bundy's (Camden-Town) for a new method of heading pins.

Mr. James Frost and Son's (Sutton-street, Clerkenwell) for an improvement on cocks, or an improved lock-cock.

Mr. Richard Woodman's (Hammersmith) for a method of manufacturing all kinds of boots, shoes, and other articles.

Mr. Henry Stubbs's (Piccadilly) for a new invented grand imperial Aulæum, from three to twenty feet wide, without seam, and to any length or colour, for decorating rooms, &c.

Mr. John Isaac Hawkins's (Great Titchfield-street) for a certain instrument applicable in mechanics as a balance or equipoise.

Mr. Thomas Pott's (Hackney) for a new process of freeing tarred rope from tar, and of rendering it of use to the manufacturer.

Mr. Jokann George Deyerlein's (Long-acre) for a machine, new principle, or method, of making

bricks and tiles, and other kinds of pottery.

Mr. Peter Stuart's (Fleet-street) for a new method of engraving and printing maps, &c.

Mr. John Lindsay's (Grovehouse, Middlesex) for a boat and various apparatus, whereby heavy burdens can be conveyed in shallow water.

Mr. Winsor's (Pall-mall) for a fixed telegraphic light-house, &c. for signals and intelligence, to serve by night and by day.

Mr. John Deakin's (St John'sstreet, Middlesex) for improvements in the kitchen range.

Mr. John Bradley's (Old Swinford, Staffordshire) for a new inethod of making gun skelps.

Sir Isaac Coffin's for a new invention of a perpetual oven for baking bread.

Mr. Ralph Wedgewood's (Oxford-street) for a new character for language, numbers, and music, and the method of applying the same.

Mr. William Doughty's (Birmingham) for a method of combining wheels for gaining mechanical powers.

Mr. George Lowe's (Cheapside) for British shirting cloth.

Mr Egerton Smith's (Liverpool) for a binnacle and compass.

Mr. James Bell's (Whitechapel) for improvements in refining sugar, and in forming sugar houses of a certain description.

Mr. John Gregory s (Islington) for a method of tunning and cleansing ales and beers into casks.

Mr. Arthur Woolf's (Lambeth) for improvements in the construction and working of steam-engines, calculated to lessen the consumption of fuel.

Mr.

Mr. Peter Durand's (Hoxton- and presses for copper-plate printsquare) for a method for preserving. ing animal and vegetable food, &c. a long time from perishing.

Mr. John Cragg's (Liverpool) for improvements in the casting of iron roofs for houses, &c.

Mr. William Muller's (London) for improvements in the construction of pumps.

Mrs. Sarah Guppy's (Bristol) for a mode of erecting and constructing bridges and rail-roads, without arches or starlings, by which the danger of being washed away by floods is avoided.

Mr. John Stancliffe's (Tooke'scourt) for certain improvements in apparatus for the combination and condensation of gasses and vapours applicable to processes of distillation.

Mr. Richard Jackson's (Southwark) for an improved method of making the shanks of anchors and other large bodies of wrought iron.

Mr. Samuel Hill's (Serle-street) for a more effectual method of joining stone pipes.

Mr. David Loeschman's (Newman-street) for improvements in the musical scales of keyed instruments with fixed tones.

Mr. Joseph Dyer's (Gray's-inn) for improvements in the construction and method of using plates

Mr. Hall's (Walthamstow) for a method of manufacturing from twigs or branches of broom, mallows, rushes, and other plants of like species, to serve instead of flax or hemp.

Mr. Thomas Wade's (Nelson. place, Surrey) for a method of imitating lapis lazuli, porphyry, jasper, &c.

Mr. John Statter's (Birmingham and Holborn) for a steam-kitchen and roaster.

Mr. Walter Rochfort's (Bishopgate-street) for an improved method of preparing coffee by compression.

Mr. John Turmeau and Charles Seward's (Cheapside) for a new lamp, called the Liverpool Lamp.

Mr. Joseph Dyer's (London) for a machine for cutting and removing all the kinds of furs used in hat-making from skins, and for cutting the skins into strips or small pieces.

Mr. John Frazer's (Sloane-street) for a discovery of certain vegetables, and a way of preparing them to be manufactured into hats, bonnets, chair-bottoms, baskets, &c.

Mr. William Bundy's (Camden-town) for an improvement on stringed instruments.

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