MR. NEEaU axe ins LtoY.—The late Mr. Rundell, it is

well known, accumulated by his business, long and sedulously pursued, a fortune which may be well deemed princely. He left very considerable legacies to various connexions ; but the bulk of his property passed to his nephew, Mr. Joseph Neeld, barrister at law, living, at the time of his uncle's death, in humble lodgings, in the very plebeian street of Norfolk, in the Strand. The amount of the sum which went to the residuary legatee has been variously estimated at from half a million to a million and a half. We preteud to no knowledge on this important point. Mr. Neeld immediately set up a handsome equipage, as he was well entitled to do ; he removed to the West end, which was all right also ; and, by way of insuring his reception there, he laid siege to the heart of the daughter of a sinecurist Tory Lord ; he set up for a most magnanimous Tory him- self. In the latter case, we humbly conceive, he was all wrong ; and it would appear that, in the former, he has had now reason to conclude that lie was not so very wise as even a young man of fortune sometimes is. The quarrels between him and Lady Caroline Shaftesbury, who has con- descended to bear his name, have long been matter of notoriety ; so that no blame is imputable in referring to them. Lady Caroline, it is well known, left -Mr. Neeld's house ; she afterwards repented of that step; and entered a suit for restitution of conjugal rights. She has again, it appears, separated from her husband, and has commenced an action for a divorce, to Inens,1 et (hero, on account of Mr. Neeld's cruelty towards her. The case was opened yesterday in the Consistory Court, when the King's Advocate spoke for Mr. Neeld. The expose is useful. All the goods of life are not engrossed by those whom the world is apt to look upon as their monopolizers. There is more truth in the well-known saying, " Blessed are the poor," than the poor are sometimes disposed to allow.

The King's Advocate, in defending his client, let out incidentally the particulars of the charge brought :against him. " The first article," he said, " pleaded the marriage of the parties, on the 1st of January, in the present year. by special licence, in the chapel of Warwick Castle. The second article pleaded a reference to a certain paper in the records of

the Court, annexed to the libel in the suit for restitution. The third pleaded the cohabitation of the parties. The fourth travelled to the 14th article, pleading the occurrences shortly after the marriage which led to the suit for restitution of conjugal rights. It was pleaded, that a few days after the marriage Mr. Neeld began to treat his wife with coolness and indifference, and at times with harshness and contumely. This was

before the suit fur restitution, in which Lady Caroline had prayed that he might return to her. They slept in the same room, but in separate

beds ; but it was not pleaded that this washy Mr. Neeld's desire. On the 5th of February, they visited the Countess of Warwick, and on the 9th Mr. Need Isft his wife and went to London." The libel (this is the name

given to a complaint in the Consistory Court) went on to say, that on the 23d he rejoieed his wife, and on the 2Uth he went again to London, givine his the no other intimation than by telling her, "I am going to London," nor did he return to cohabitation till the decree of the Court ia..sam—al, under the circumstances in which your behaviour towards me has

was issued. Lady Caroline meanwhile staved at Warwick Castle a uneegserily required you to come to tide hotel, at which I have used since your con-

week, she visited her sister in Shropshire, and did various other things. duct forced inc to break up my establishment in Grosvenor Square, and where I The Earl of Shaftesbury, aware that differences existed between the parties, interfered in order to put an end to them, without effect ; Mr. Neeld at last proposed that they should live apart, and asserted that such a proposal had proceeded from Lady Caroline, which was not the fact, save that, on one occasion, during their stay at War- wick Castle, Lady Caroline did say, in a moment of irritation, that .a separation would be preferable to the endurance of Mr. Neeld's conduct. Negotiations were however carried on between Lord Shaftesbury and Lady Caroline Neeld and Mr. Neeld, for a separation ; but on the 11th of April, Lady Caroline, being informed that Mr. Neeld was expected in town, went to their house in Grosvenor Square, in order to meet him and be reconciled to him; on the 12th, he came home, with his brother and Captain Boldero, and though informed that Lady Caroline was there, shut himself up in a room, and sent a message to her that he was going out, and left the house. In the afternoon of the 12th, Mr. Neeld sent a letter to Lord Shaftesbury, again proposing a separation, and restating that the proposal for a permanent separation originated with Lady Caro- ' line : ou this letter being communicated to her ladyship, she wrote a letter to Mr. Neeld, in which she disclaimed the proposal, and stating that she had ordered a bed to be put in her dressing-room, because she did not wish to intrude on his room ; but she had ordered a bed-room to be prepared for both, and it remained for him to say where he would sleep ; he returned a message that he should not sleep at home, but at a tavern, and he did so. In consequence of Mr. Neeld's desire for a sepa- ration, Lady Caroline was induced reluctantly to consent to the proposal. But it happened, unfortunately, that this separation was not carried into effect, and why ? Lady Caroline pleaded that the separate income offered by Mr. Neeld was insufficient for her proper maintenance, and bore no just proportion to the fortune of Mr. Neeld ; and that her friends advised her not to accept the same, as it would compromise her character. From the time of the rejection of that proposal, .Mr. Neeld commenced and persisted in abstaining from personal intercourse with his wife, and in other insults and indignities, the express object of which was to break and subdue her spirit, and induce her to accept such proposal as he should think proper to Make. ' So pleaded the libel. It Went on to say, that on the 20th of April Mr. Neeld wrote a letter to his wife, in which he sig- nified that he intended to have no town establishment, and took mea- :-..anres to dispose of his house in Grosvenor Square, by sticking bills in the window, although his wife was then in the occupation of the same. .If the parties could not live together, he did not know, even if the f acts were as charged, where waathe cruelty, insult, or indignity in this On the 20th of April also Mr. Neeld wrote to his wife to repair his house . at

Alrittleton, Wilts, where he would join her as.soon as his Parliamentary pieced me, whether I shall ever hereafter keep any London establishment, I have

duties were over. On the 23rd Parliament was dissolved, when Mr. Neeld went into Wiltshire to secure his re-election for Chippenham. his wife went to Chippenham, and it was alleged that although Mr. Neeld was apprized of this fact, he took no notice of her, and wrote to say, that lie did not intend to join her at Brittleton. Ou the 13th of May he left Wiltshire and came to London ; and it was another charge against Mr. Neeld that he left Lady Caroline only an old chaise and a single pair of horses, and that in consequence of the great weight of the carriage, her ladyship could not take drives of any length ; and that to enable her to go out at all, it iv::s necessary to place a trunk in front of the carriage, which had no proper seat. The next allegation was, that in consequence, as well of Mr. Neeld's total desertion of his wife, as of his general treatment of her, reports got abroad to the prejudice of her character ; and that in a paragraph in a periodical publication called the Satirist, such a report was published, and that Mr. Neeld, though aware of the paragraph, took no notice thereof. [The paragraph, which charged Lady Caroline with having had a child a short time after her marriage, was subsequently apologized for, and declare(] to be wholly unfounded, by the paper that first circu- lated it ] The libel proceeded to say, that when applied to by Lord Shaftesbury, on the propriety of vindicating the honour of his wife, by prosecuting the libeller, he refused to take any step ur to interfere ; that Lord Shaftesbury thereupon took measures to prosecute the party, and this having come to the knowledge of Mr. William Ashley, the second brother of Lady Caroline Neeld, that gentleman in- sisted on Mr. Neeld's taking up the prosecution instead of Lord Shaftesbury, on pain of a certain alternative, which Mr. Neeld not choosing to encounter, he consented to prosecute the libeller. The learned gentleman, after recapitulating several of these points, and insisting. that they did not warrant the inference of cruelty, went on to notice some other and less important charges. Lady Caroline was des tallied at home one whole day, in consequence of Mr. Neeld denying her a carriage ; her bed was taken down in the house in Grosvenor Square, by a mistake of his orders, it was allowed, and it was immediately put up again. Another artide of the libel pleaded that Mr. Neeld had forbidden the postmaster at Chipperihani to let Lady Caroline have post- horses. The issue of the previous suit, for a restitution of conjugal rights, was Mr. Neeld's writing, on the 14th of July, a letter to his wife, who was at the Pulteney Hotel, stating that he had consented to renew their cohabitation, and directing her to come to him without delay to Coulson's Hotel; he wrote at the same time to the keeper of Puke- ney's Hotel, desiring bin to let her have apartments there no longer. hear Caroline proceeded to Coulson's Hotel, accompanied by her brother Lord Ashley, and found Mr. Neeld there : Lord Ashley withdrew, and left them together. On Lady Caroline's asking for the chamber-maid to show her her room, Mr. Neeld showed her one, and in a surly tone said, " That is the room you are to inhabit ;" adding, thathe did not intend to sleep with her. The next morning he desired her to send her maid, to him, and gave her a letter which it was alleged improperly reflected upon

Lady Caroline Neeld. The letter was as follows. "Couisou's Hotel, Thursday Nieht.

"Counsel haVe advised me, upon deliberate consideration, that nothing short of an act of adultery eu your part, or acts of personal violence, or sonic other acts which they have intimated to me, would enable me legally to refuse your claim of cohabitation. They had all your acts of misconduct towards in; laid before them, and they haveadvised me that, however unworthy your conduct might have been, you had not legally forfeited the claiths of a wife. Under these circumstances, I consented to take you Lack. " In obedience, therefore, to the Doctors' Commons decree, I have consented to take yea back ; but as I have nut any habitable house in London, and as it

shed continue to reside during 'my Parliamentary stay in London. " I take this opportunity to declare, and to impress upon you, that Ishall require from you that duty and obedience in all things which a wife owes to her husband, and which I am determined to enforce. " Your calumnies against me have imposed upon me the necessity of' withdrawing from that style of living which otherwise I should have adopted. You must be con- tented, therefore, to submit to that quiet and retired situation of life to which you have subjected us: and I distinctly apprize you, that if you persist in the extrava- unat and vexetions expenditure of money, welch (in order to annoy me) you have lately pursued, I shall insert advertisements in all the daily and weekly prints, cau- tioning tradesmen against trusting you oil my credit.

"That you should have adopted the proceedings which have given rise to the communication is much more derogatory to you than annoying to me. You well know the base and slanderous aspersions you have propagated against me. If those statements had been true, it would have been disgraceful in you to have sought fur- ther cohabitation with me; to have done that, would have been to avow openly that the temptation of a large income would induce you to disregard every principle of delicacy and womanly honour, end to live with a man you ought to despise. The only other alternative for you is, that your statements are (as you well knew them to be) absohrely false ; and that yoe would acknowledge their falsehood, and return to cohabitation with your slandered husband. That alternative you have adopted. Your own record at Doctors' Commons establishes the falsehood of your accusathens against me; your own process is conclusive evidence against you. " But do not imagine that these disgraceful proceedings deceive me. That they were founded on any conjugal affection, or arose out of any actual desire for coha- bitation, I am not so foolish as to believe. That they were instituted with ulterior views I well know. But be assured that I will take good care to disappoint those views. I will not be impelled by such acts as these to gratify the mercenary motives in which they have originated ; and you shall not have any success of that kinctto console you for the degradation of character which must be the result of your spon- taneous return to cohabitation with ahusbaud whose character you have so foully aspersed. What my future conduct towards you may be, will depend entirely on the pro- priety of yours towards me. " lteperuse this letter, and then ask yourself what cause you had for the exulting exclamation yon uttered upon entering my room in the morning, Now I have tri- umphed ! I knew I should bring you back to me !' Yours, if J. N.1.> The next allegation was, that Mr. Neeld drew up a statement respecting this suit, and caused copies to be made of it, which, though not published, were circulated amongst his friends. The 22d article pleaded, that the day after the return to cohabitation, as Lady Caroline was sitting with Lord Ashley, her brother, Mr. Neeld came into the room, and without any observation or provocation given, in a violent tone of voice ordered his lordship to leave the room ; that he rung the bell for the waiter, so violently, that the bell broke, and ordered the waiter to turn Lord Ashle y out ; and called upon the waiter to bear witness that Lady Caroline had called him A villain and rascal; the first of. which epithets her.ladyship admitted she did use, in a moment of irritation. The 23d article pleaded, that the apartments at Coulson's Hotel were " comparatively "-dirty and ill-furnishedaup three-pair of stairs. The 29th article pleaded that Mr. Neeld,,in terms, of great harshness and asperity, refused .hiss wife the use

'of a britschka she had hired, and suffered her to go out in an old green

The 25th charged Mr. Neeld with refusing her a guinea to pay her physician's fee, which fee remained unpaid. This might be cruelty to the physician, but not to the wife. The 28th pleaded that

Mr. Neeld told her he was going into Hampshire, and that if she

accompanied him, she must travel five in a carriage, with a pair of horses, and wait upon herself, as he could not incur more expense, by

reason of her extravagance in burning wax-lights. It was also pleaded, amongst other things, that Lady Carolina seldom wentamt. and then only to visit her family ; and that on one occasion Mr. Neeld returned home at ten o'clock, and finding her out, flew into a passion, and said that it did not follow that she was gone to her father's or her sister's, though she said so, and " much more to tile same effect." On the 9th of August, Mr. Neeld went out to dinner, first ordering his wife's, directing what she should eat. At dinner, Lady Caroline inquired if there was any soup, or tart, or pudding, and was told by the waiter that Mr. Neeld had ordered that she was to have that dinner and no other ! After dinner, she required the footman to attend her to her sister's; he refused, alleging he had orders to that effect from Mr. Neeld. She went out, however, and Mr. Neeld went after her ; and driving in his cab to her sister's, Lady Harriet Corry, ordered his wife to come out, and although a close carriage of her father's was coming

for her, obliged her to get into the cab, rudely forcing her into the seat, and slapping down the wooden apron, to her personal injury as well as

alarm. He drove at a furious rate, and by a circuitous route, although it rained in torrents, with thunder and lightning ; and on her ladyship saying that if he did not drive straight home, she would cry out, lie

exclaimed, "Be quiet, or I'll be d—d if I don't drive you into the city !" Then it appeared, that Mr. Neeld threatened to lock her up, adding, " Such a wretch as you must stay at home ;" that he called for the keys, and, in the presence of the waiter, did lock his wife up in her sitting- room for two hours. Lady Caroline then fastened herself in her bed

room, which Mr. Neeld endeavoured ineffectually to break open, calling on her to come out and make tea for him, " and more to the same effect." Lady Caroline on this invitation came out, and declared she

would go to her father's, but Mr. Neeld dragged her into the sitting-room,

telling her she might go next day. About eleven o'clock on the same evening, Lady Harriet Corry, her ladyship's sister, came to Coalsonds Hotel, and saw Lady Caroline. On her departure, Lady Caroline was seeing her to the door, when Mr. Neeld took hold of her with violence to draw her back, and left marks on her arms; which were seen by several persons. He then ordered two pillows to be put on her bed,

.as he said he intended-to sleep there ; the bed-room door was, however,

bolted by Lady Caroline, who lay down in her clothes, and who was disturbed till two o'clock, by Mr. Neeld's attempts, or pretended attempts, to force the door. In the morning she heft the hotel, and never returned. The learned Advocate coneluded—" The mar- riage turned out unfortunate ; by whose fault, it was not easy to

ascertain. There might be faults on both sides. Mr. Neeld, for sonic

reason, might have conducted himself with some degree of harshness to- wards his wife ; but, except the act of locking her up, and the bruises,

it is alleged, she received, there was no personal violence on which a sen-

tence of separation could be sustained. The 37th article was a novel one : after all the specific acts were charged, they were summed up in a gene- ral plea, that, as well in the above instances, as in every other instance,

during their cohabitation, the said Joseph Neeld had used every means in his power to vex and harass his said wife ; that he grossly abused her;

that lie frequently treated her with sullen silence and pretended' con- ;tempt ; that he abused her family, and said they were a set disgraceful to be connected with, and declared that he would bring her down 'lower, lower, lower, still.' " Dr. Dodson replied, on the part of Lady Caroline, to the King's Advo- cate. He contended, that Lady Caroline was entitled to set forth all the acts of harshness and severity which had begun 'from the moment of her marriage. It was necessary that she should repel the presumption which might arise from the cessation of the former suit, and to show the peculiar circumstances attending it. It was not because this noble lady expected to be treated with kindness and tenderness by her husband, that she desired to be restored to his society, but for the preservation of her character, which was dearer to her than life, and which had been grossly and slanderously assailed. She had been charged with giving birth to a child six weeks after her marriage—with having declared her

husband was not the father of the child, but an officer of the Guards. And what was the conduct of Mr. Neeld, whose duty it was to put an end to the slander? He openly and ostentatiously deserts his wife, obliging her to live in a manlier in which the wife of a wealthy man ought not to live, and thereby countenances the calumny. With respect to the law of cruelty, no strict definition had been given ; it had been said what cruelty was not, but no affirmative definition had been given. Ile admitted, that to constitute legal sceeitia, there must be reasonable appre- hension of something affecting life, limb, or health; and he submitted that the facts stated in the libel came up to that definition. The learned Advocate then went through the articles one by one, replying to the objections made by the two learned counsel who preceded him. With respect to the sepa. rate beds, pleaded in the 4th article, it was said that it ought to be pleaded that the separation was by desire of Mr. Neeld. So it was. It was alleged that it was no fault of the wife's : whose fault was it then ? But if it was desired to have this altered and made clearer, it should be done. There was a fallacy in the whole argument on the other side. They assumed that because each fact in the libel was not an act of cruelty, it could not be put in plea. But they might be pleaded in aggra- vation of other acts. In respect to the 8th article, the King's Advocate had said that the secret was out—that the object of the lady was money, and nothing else. But he had not read the words—" as by so doing she should compromise her own character, which had been so severely at- tacked." Had she consented to such a proposal of such an allowance from a gentleman who was the rich legatee of the late Mr. Runde'', there would have been an end to her fair fame ; and she owed it to her friends, her family, and herself, not to accept those terms. Her cha- racter was dearer to her than all the worth of Mexico and Peru. But the object of Mr. Neeld was to get rid of his wife as cheaply as he could, as might be inferred from all the circumstances of the case. With respect to his behaviour when the paragraph in the Satirist ap- peered, what individual with the feelings of a man would suffer such a degrading insult on his wife ? Instead of refuting the charge and punishing the libeller, Mr. Neeld had acted as if he believed the charge was true. Dr. Dodson went on to point out in the remaining articles, the proofs of Mr. Neeld's systematic annoyance of his wife, with a view, as alleged, of compelling her to a separation on his own pecuniary terms. It had been said that Mr. Neeld's ordering Lord Ashley to be turned out of the hotel was what he had a right to do. But if such right was exercised in an improper manner, it became marital tyranny. No offence or provocation whatever had been offered by Lord Ashley, yet Mr. Neeld orders a waiter to turn him out of the house. The objection to incurring expense on account of Lady Caroline's extravagance in bursting wax candles, almost induced a suspicion that insanity was mixed up with the case.. If all these facts did not bring the case within the legal definition of cruelty, he did not know what could. If there was only one act of cruelty, or no act at all, but a reasonable apprehension of violence, that was sufficient to found the sentence of the Court.

The Judge, Dr. Lushington, ordered, that before next Court-day, the various letters alluded to in the pleadings should be produced. So next week, we suppose, we shall have another act of the farce of Low Life. above Stairs.