e doubt of obtaining thanks from the council for so
acceptable a service.

The duke of Sultsbach, having Jerom now in his power, wrote to the
council for directions how to proceed. The council, after expressing
their obligations to the duke, desired him to send the prisoner
immediately to Constance. The elector palatine met him on the way, and
conducted him into the city, himself riding on horseback, with a
numerous retinue, who led Jerom in fetters by a long chain; and
immediately on his arrival he was committed to a loathsome dungeon.

Jerom was treated nearly in the same manner as Huss had been, only that
he was much longer confined, and shifted from one prison to another. At
length, being brought before the council, he desired that he might plead
his own cause, and exculpate himself: which being refused him, he broke
out into the following elegant exclamation:

"What barbarity is this! For three hundred and forty days have I been
confined in a variety of prisons. There is not a misery, there is not a
want, that I have not experienced. To my enemies you have allowed the
fullest scope of accusation: to me, you deny, the least opportunity of
defence. Not an hour will you now indulge me in preparing for my trial.
You have swallowed the blackest calumnies against me. You have
represented me as a heretic, without knowing my doctrine; as an enemy to
the faith, before you knew what faith I professed; as a persecutor of
priests before you could have an opportunity of understanding my
sentiments on that head. You are a general council: in you centre all
this world can communicate of gravity, wisdom, and sanctity: but still
you are men, and men are seducible by appearances. The higher your
character is for wisdom, the greater ought your care to be not to
deviate into folly. The cause I now plead is not my own cause: it is the
cause of men, it is the cause of christians; it is a cause which is to
affect the rights of posterity, however the experiment is to be made in
my person."

This speech had not the least effect; Jerom was obliged to hear the
charge read, which was reduced under the following heads:--1. That he
was a derider of the papal dignity;--2. An opposer of the pope;--3. An
enemy to the cardinals;--4. A persecutor of the prelates;--and 5. A
hater of the christian religion.

The trial of Jerom was brought on the third day after his accusation and
witnesses were examined in support of the charge. The prisoner was