of Anak in a body, he should never have had
occasion or opportunity to repeat the temptation to another. "I would
have slain him," said the little man of loyalty, "even where he stood."

The charge was stated anew by the Counsel for the Crown; and forth came
the notorious Doctor Oates, rustling in the full silken canonicals
of priesthood, for it was a time when he affected no small dignity of
exterior decoration and deportment.

This singular man, who, aided by the obscure intrigues of the Catholics
themselves, and the fortuitous circumstance of Godfrey's murder, had
been able to cram down the public throat such a mass of absurdity as his
evidence amounts to, had no other talent for imposture than an impudence
which set conviction and shame alike at defiance. A man of sense
or reflection, by trying to give his plot an appearance of more
probability, would most likely have failed, as wise men often to do
in addressing the multitude, from not daring to calculate upon the
prodigious extent of their credulity, especially where the figments
presented to them involve the fearful and the terrible.

Oates was by nature choleric; and the credit he had acquired made him
insolent and conceited. Even his exterior was portentous. A fleece of
white periwig showed a most uncouth visage, of great length, having the
mouth, as the organ by use of which he was to rise to eminence, placed
in the very centre of the countenance, and exhibiting to the astonished
spectator as much chin below as there was nose and brow above the
aperture. His pronunciation, too, was after a conceited fashion of his
own, in which he accented the vowels in a manner altogether peculiar to
himself.

This notorious personage, such as we have described him, stood forth on
the present trial, and delivered his astonishing testimony concerning
the existence of a Catholic Plot for the subversion of the government
and murder of the King, in the same general outline in which it may be
found in every English history. But as the doctor always had in reserve
some special piece of evidence affecting those immediately on trial, he
was pleased, on the present occasion, deeply to inculpate the Countess
of Derby. "He had seen," as he said, "that honourable lady when he was
at the Jesuits' College at Saint Omer's. She had sent for him to an inn,
or _auberge_, as it was there termed--the sign of the Golden Lamb; and
had ordered him to breakfast in the same room with her ladyship;