k, but come forward and get into the box."
He paused, and had no further interruption. "To you, Gentlemen of the
Jury, I appeal. I ask you if you have seen enough of the rags of this
noble family?" and he pulled out the worst piece of the linen, and
held it at arm's length during the greater part of a taunting speech
of the same kind: then, throwing it contemptuously from him--"Away,
away, I say, with these rags of the noble family of N----!" (and some
one gathered up all together, and took them out of court)--"and God
grant that they may never rise up in judgment against them! Poor,
weak, foolish woman! she took them as her perquisite. Perquisite
indeed! her folly was her fault; for you have seen that they were not
worth the taking.

"Gentlemen of the Jury, I cannot believe that you will lend yourselves
to such a grovelling prosecution--_persecution_, as this. I pause not
to investigate where the evil spirit arose, in principles or agents,
against this injured and calumniated female. If the great ones of our
earth will disgrace themselves--if they will listen to the suggestions
of envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, I trust that
you, more humble members of the community, will not be partakers of
these evil passions. Where the prosecutor has sustained no personal
fear and no personal loss, it is impossible that any offence can have
been committed. You are not twelve despots sitting upon a case of
high treason against the game-laws, and are to have your consciences
racked, to bring in a verdict of trespass, where no damage can be
proved; you are not required to strain right against justice and
honesty. What is the offence? How is our Lord the King or his subjects
aggrieved? Those rags!--I know not what the splendid household of the
Duke may require for matches and tinder; for this is all the value
that can be attached to them. Shall we call for them back again, lest
the Duke and the Duchess should lose their recovered treasure? I
am not disposed to dispute their right; for even if they were the
perquisite of the housekeeper, I am convinced that she would not get
a farthing emolument for those tattered remnants of nobility. Of one
thing I am well assured, that there is not a sufficiency of sound
linen in the whole to make lint enough to cover the wound that the
reputation of the noble Duke and Duchess has sustained in this
disgraceful prosecution. Gentlemen, I will trouble you no further--I
confidently ex