stake his
professional character on the legality of its proceedings. The argument
is this. Things have doubtless been done which should not have been
done. The court-martial sat without a jurisdiction; it convicted without
evidence; it condemned to a punishment not warranted by law. But we must
make allowances. We must judge by comparison. 'Mr Smith ought to have
been very thankful that it was no worse. Only think what would have been
his fate if he had been tried by a jury of planters!' Sir, I have always
lived under the protection of the British laws, and therefore I
am unable to imagine what could be worse; but, though I have small
knowledge, I have a large faith; I by no means presume to set any limits
to the possible injustice of a West Indian judicature. And since the
colonists maintain that a jury composed of their own body not only
possibly might, but necessarily must, have acted with more iniquity than
this court-martial, I certainly shall not dispute the assertion, though
I am utterly unable to conceive the mode."

That was probably the happiest half-hour of Zachary Macaulay's life. "My
friend," said Wilberforce, when his turn came to speak, "would doubtless
willingly bear with all the base falsehoods, all the vile calumnies, all
the detestable artifices which have been aimed against him, to render
him the martyr and victim of our cause, for the gratification he has
this day enjoyed in hearing one so dear to him plead such a cause in
such a manner." Keen as his pleasure was, he took it in his own sad
way. From the first moment to the last, he never moved a muscle of his
countenance, but sat with his eyes fixed on a piece of paper, on which
he seemed to be writing with a pencil. While talking with his son that
evening, he referred to what had passed only to remark that it was
ungraceful in so young a man to speak with folded arms in the presence
of royalty.

In 1823 the leading members of the cleverest set of boys who ever were
together at a public school found themselves collected once more at
Cambridge. Of the former staff of the Etonian, Praed, Moultrie, Nelson
Coleridge, and, among others, Mr. Edmond Beales, so well known to our
generation as an ardent politician, were now in residence at King's or
Trinity. Mr. Charles Knight, too enterprising a publisher to let such
a quantity of youthful talent run to waste, started a periodical, which
was largely supported by undergraduates and Bachelors of Arts, among