of a very common case, in which he did not seem to be making more of the subject than it required or would well bear. The consequence, partly we may suppose of the justice of the cause, and partly of the dexterous manner in which Markham managed it, was, that he had a verdict with as much damages as were claimed. This was a great triumph of plain common sense: for Markham did not by foolishly attempting to make too much of the business overdo and destroy it. His speech which was rather long, and which in its delivery was very clear and distinct, and in its sentences and construction lucid and intelligible, so much pleased and attracted the reporters who were present, that they gave it in the papers at very great length, and especially as trials of this nature are generally highly interesting to the public. The country trials are read in London. Few young ladies pass over a trial for breach of promise of marriage, without attentively studying the arguments of the case, and delightedly dwelling upon the eloquence and pathos in which the agonies of a broken heart are described and painted to an attentive jury of honest though obtuse agriculturists. Some young ladies were disappointed at Markham's speech, for they had heard that he was a clever man, and they were astonished not to find any more sublimity or sentimentality in his speeches at trials. These young ladies take it as a settled matter, that all clever men who make speeches must by virtue of their cleverness be very flowery and sentimental and figurative in their language. Markham knew better. The jury which he addressed was not composed of tender-hearted, susceptible young gentlemen, overdone with poetry and romance, but of twelve blunt, honest, hard-handed, close-fisted, cool-hearted, dry-souled, middle-aged farmers, who scarcely knew what was meant by a broken heart. It would have been nonsense then to have addressed to them a trumpery fine spoutification, such as young apprentices and journeymen apothecaries administer to one another at their sixpenny debating-clubs and public-house wisdom-shops. Markham spoke to what he knew to be the purpose. A young lady brought an action against a young gentleman for breach of promise of marriage; the first question which the jury would wish to have answered was, is it true that such promise was given and broken? They did not want to hear a school-boy theme on the subject; and if they had heard one, and if they had heard Markham labor very hard to prove the young gentleman one of the most hard-hearted, wicked, abominable creatures that ever lived, and to set forth the young lady as the most cruelly afflicted and tormented of all the broken-hearted daughters of Eve, they might have stared with astonishment at Markham's very wonderful display, but they would not have understood one-half of his fine words, and would not have believed one-half of his fine story. But when it was proved as stated, that there actually had been