almost unconsciously he becomes deeply interested in the changes and
vacillations of the game he believed could have presented but one
aspect of fortune.

But the prisoner is not my object: I turn rather to the lawyer. Here
then do we not see the accomplished gentleman--the finished
scholar--the man of refinement and of learning, of character and
station--standing forth the very embodiment of the individual in the
dock? possessed of all his secrets--animated by the same
hopes--penetrated by the same fears--he endeavours by all the subtle
ingenuity, with which craft and habit have gifted him, to confound the
testimony--to disparage the truth--to pervert the inferences of all
the witnesses. In fact, he employs all the stratagems of his calling,
all the ingenuity of his mind, all the subtlety of his wit for the one
end--that the man he believes in his own heart guilty, may, on the
oaths of twelve honest men, be pronounced innocent.

From the opening of the trial to its close, this mental gladiator is
an object of wonder and dread. Scarcely a quality of the human mind is
not exhibited by him in the brilliant panorama of his intellect. At
first, the patient perusal of a complex and wordy indictment occupies him
exclusively: he then proceeds to cross-examine the witnesses--flattering
this one--brow-beating that--suggesting--insinuating--amplifying, or
retrenching, as the evidence would seem to favour or be adverse to his
client. He is alternately confident and doubtful, headlong and
hesitating--now hurried away on the full tide of his eloquence he
expatiates in beautiful generalities on the glorious institution of
trial by jury, and apostrophizes justice; or now, with broken
utterance and plaintive voice, he supplicates the jury to be patient,
and be careful in the decision they may come to. He implores them to
remember that when they leave that court, and return to the happy
comforts of their home, conscience will follow them, and the
everlasting question crave for answer within them--were they sure of
this man's guilt? He teaches them how fallacious are all human tests;
he magnifies the slightest discrepancy of evidence into a broad and
sweeping contradiction; and while, with a prophetic menace, he
pictures forth the undying remorse that pursues him who sheds innocent
blood, he dismisses them with an affecting picture of mental agony so
great--of suffering so heart-rending, that, as they retire to the
jury-room, there is