es, the friends of Verres replied by the pencil of
Gillray, representing Hastings as the savior of India defending himself
heroically against assassins with the faces of Burke and of Fox. As
the interest in the trial flagged the caricatures grew fewer and fewer,
to revive a little at the close of the case. The popular view of the
trial was then represented fairly enough by a large print called "The
Last Scene of the Manager's Farce," in which Hastings was represented
as rising in glory from the clouds of calumny, while Burke and Fox are
represented witnessing with despair the failure of their protracted
farce, and the crafty face of Philip Francis peeped from behind a scene
where he was supposed to be playing the part of the prompter--"no
character in the farce, but very useful behind the scenes," a
description which sums up smartly enough the part that Philip Francis
played in the whole transaction from first to last.

[Sidenote: 1818--Death of Hastings]

The eve of Hastings's life was as peaceful as its noon and day had been
stormy. The proconsul became a country squire; the ruler of an empire,
the autocrat of kings, soothed his old age very much after the fashion
of Diocletian and of Candide, in the planting of cabbages. For
three-and-twenty years he dwelt at Daylesford, happy in his wife, happy
in his friends, happy in his health, in his rustic tastes, in his
simple pleasures, in his tranquil occupation. He and his wife often
visited London, but Hastings seems to have been always happiest in the
country, and he gradually declined into extreme old age with all the
grace and dignity of a Roman gentleman, loved by his {289} friends,
dearly loved by those who were young. Once in those long quiet years,
after the death of Pitt, Hastings, to please his wife, pleaded for
public reparation of the wrong which he believed had been done him.
Grenville professed every willingness to grant him a peerage, but
refused to entertain the idea of inducing the Commons to reverse their
former judgment. On those terms Hastings declined the peerage. The
nearest approach to anything like public consolation for his sorrows
came to him in 1813, when, at the age of eighty, he came once more to
the Bar of the House of Commons, this time to give evidence on the
question of renewing the Charter of the East India Company. By both
Houses, Commons and Lords alike, the old man was greeted with the
greatest enthusiasm, saluted with rapturou