tion. One of them, I know, was executed, and, if I remember
aright, sentence of transportation passed on another. The woman,
however, was not implicated, and her reputed lover escaped. My evidence
was so conclusive and so fatal that the prisoners' counsel had no other
resource than to damage my credit by assailing my character, and in his
cross-examination of me he drew forth such details of my former life,
and the vicissitudes of my existence, that I left the witness-table
a ruined man. It was not a very difficult task to represent a life of
poverty as one of ignominy and shame. The next day my acquaintances
passed without recognizing me, and from that hour forth none ever
consulted me. In my indignation at this injustice I connected all who
could have in any way contributed to my misfortune, and this poor orphan
child amongst the rest. Had I never been engaged in that ill-starred
case, my prospects in life had been reasonably fair and hopeful. I was
in sufficient practice, increasing in repute, and likely to succeed,
when this calamitous affair crossed me.

"Patience under unmerited suffering was never amongst my virtues, and
in various ways I assailed those who had attacked me. I ridiculed the
lawyer who had conducted the defence, sneered at his law, exposed
his ignorance of chemistry, and, carried away by that fatal ardor of
acrimony I never knew how to restrain, I more than suggested that, when
he appealed to Heaven in the assertion of his client's innocence, he
held in his possession a written confession of his guilt. For this an
action of libel was brought against me; the damages were assessed at
five hundred pounds, and I spent four years in a jail to acquit the
debt. Judge, then, with what memories I ever referred to that event
of my life. It was, perhaps, the one solitary incident in which I had
resisted a strong temptation. I was offered a large bribe to fail in my
analysis, and yet it cost me all the prosperity it had taken years of
labor to accomplish!

"Imprisonment had not cooled my passion. The first thing which I did
when free was to dramatize the trial for one of those low pot-houses
where Judge and Jury scenes are represented; and so accurately did I
caricature my enemy, the counsel, that he was actually laughed out
of court and ruined. If I could have traced the other actors in the
terrible incident, I would have pursued them with like rancor; but I
could not: they had left England, and gone Heaven