st of the
English, and nurses sing children to sleep with a gingling ballad
about the fleet horses and richly-caparisoned elephants of Sahib
Warren Hostein."

[Sidenote: Prosecution of Hastings.]

But neither the admiration of the people of the East for the splendid
abilities of Hastings, nor the gratitude of a company of merchants,
nor the powerful friends he had in the English parliament, could
screen him from the malignant hatred of Francis, or the purer
indignation of Burke. The zeal which the latter evinced in his
prosecution has never been equalled, and all his energies, for years,
were devoted to the exposure of a person whom he regarded as "a
delinquent of the first magnitude." "He had just as lively an idea of
the insurrection at Benares as of Lord George Gordon's riots, and of
the execution of Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. Dodd." Burke was
assisted in his vehement prosecution by Charles James Fox, the
greatest debater ever known in the House of Commons, but a man vastly
inferior to himself in moral elevation, in general knowledge, in power
of fancy, and in profound wisdom.

The trial was at Westminster Hall, the hall which had witnessed the
inauguration of thirty kings, and the trials of accused nobles since
the time of William Rufus. And he was a culprit not unworthy of that
great tribunal before which he was summoned--"a tribunal which had
pronounced sentence on Strafford, and pardon on Somers"--the tribunal
before which royalty itself had been called to account. Hastings had
ruled, with absolute sway, a country which was more populous and more
extensive than any of the kingdoms of Europe, and had gained a fame
which was bounded only by the unknown countries of the globe. He was
defended by three men who subsequently became the three highest judges
of the land, and he was encouraged by the appearance and sympathetic
smiles of the highest nobles of the realm.

[Sidenote: Edmund Burke.]

But greater than all were the mighty statesmen who conducted the
prosecution. First among them in character and genius was Edmund
Burke, who, from the time that he first spoke in the House of Commons,
in 1766, had been a prominent member, and had, at length, secured
greater fame than any of his contemporaries, Pitt alone excepted, not
merely as an orator, but as an enlightened statesman, a philosopher,
and a philanthropist. He excelled all the great men with whom he was
associated, in the variety of his powers; he