m Robert Oakshott, or rather his wife, had engaged at
great expense for the prosecution, was one of the most rising of
barristers, noted for his persuasive eloquence, and unfortunately
Mr. Harcourt had not the right of reply.

The melancholy party were conducted into court, Sir Philip and Sir
Edmund to the seats disposed of by the sheriff, beside the judge,
strangely enough only divided by him from Major Oakshott. The judge
was Mr. Baron Hatsel, a somewhat weak-looking man, in spite of his
red robes and flowing wig, as he sat under his canopy beneath King
Arthur's Round Table. Sedley, perhaps a little thinner since his
imprisonment, but with the purple red on his face, and his prominent
eyes so hard and bold that it was galling to know that this was
really the confidence of innocence.

Mr. Cowper was with great ability putting the case. Here were two
families in immediate neighbourhood, divided from the first by
political opinions of the strongest complexion; and he put the
Oakshott views upon liberty, civil and religious, in the most
popular light. The unfortunate deceased he described as having been
a highly promising member of the suite of the distinguished Envoy,
Sir Peregrine Oakshott, whose name he bore. On the death of the
eldest brother he had been recalled, and his accomplishments and
foreign air had, it appeared, excited the spleen of the young
gentlemen of the county belonging to the Tory party, then in the
ascendant, above all of the prisoner. There was then little or no
etiquette as to irrelevant matter, so that Mr. Cowper could dwell at
length on Sedley's antecedents, as abusing the bounty of his uncle,
a known bully expelled for misconduct from Winchester College, then
acting as a suitable instrument in those violences in Scotland which
had driven the nation finally to extremity, noted for his
debaucheries when in garrison, and finally broken for
insubordination in Ireland.

After this unflattering portrait, which Sedley's looks certainly did
not belie, the counsel went back to 1688, proceeded to mention
several disputes which had taken place when Peregrine had met
Lieutenant Archfield at Portsmouth; but, he added with a smile, that
no dart of malice was ever thoroughly winged till Cupid had added
his feather; and he went on to describe in strong colours the insult
to a young gentlewoman, and the interference of the other young man
in her behalf, so that swords were drawn before the appearance o