from
the recollection of that night in a voluntary death. Life was now
stripped of all those recommendations, for the sake of which it was dear
to me. But even this consolation is denied me. I am compelled to drag
for ever the intolerable load of existence, upon penalty, if at any
period, however remote, I shake it off, of having that impatience
regarded as confirming a charge of murder. Gentlemen, if by your
decision you could take away my life, without that act being connected
with my disgrace, I would bless the cord that stopped the breath of my
existence for ever.

"You all know how easily I might have fled from this purgation. If I had
been guilty, should I not have embraced the opportunity? But, as it was,
I could not. Reputation has been the idol, the jewel of my life. I could
never have borne to think that a human creature, in the remotest part of
the globe, should believe that I was a criminal. Alas! what a deity it
is that I have chosen for my worship! I have entailed upon myself
everlasting agony and despair!

"I have but one word to add. Gentlemen, I charge you to do me the
imperfect justice that is in your power! My life is a worthless thing.
But my honour, the empty remains of honour I have now to boast, is in
your judgment, and you will each of you, from this day, have imposed
upon yourselves the task of its vindicators. It is little that you can
do for me; but it is not less your duty to do that little. May that God
who is the fountain of honour and good prosper and protect you! The man
who now stands before you is devoted to perpetual barrenness and blast!
He has nothing to hope for beyond the feeble consolation of this day!"

"You will easily imagine that Mr. Falkland was discharged with every
circumstance of credit. Nothing is more to be deplored in human
institutions, than that the ideas of mankind should have annexed a
sentiment of disgrace to a purgation thus satisfactory and decisive. No
one entertained the shadow of a doubt upon the subject, and yet a mere
concurrence of circumstances made it necessary that the best of men
should be publicly put on his defence, as if really under suspicion of
an atrocious crime. It may be granted indeed that Mr. Falkland had his
faults, but those very faults placed him at a still further distance
from the criminality in question. He was the fool of honour and fame: a
man whom, in the pursuit of reputation, nothing could divert; who would
have purchased the ch