R XLVII.

MR. SHARP'S ADVOCACY.

The whole court trembled with excitement: it was deep, still
silence; and the judge said,

"Prisoner at the bar, there is now no evidence against you: gentlemen of
the jury, of course you will acquit him."

The foreman: "All agreed, my lord, not guilty."

"Roger Acton," said the judge, "to God alone you owe this marvellous,
almost miraculous, interposition: you have had many wrongs innocently to
endure, and I trust that the right feelings of society will requite you
for them in this world, as, if you serve Him, God will in the next. You
are honourably acquitted, and may leave this bar."

In vain the crier shouted, in vain the javelin-men helped the crier, the
court was in a tumult of joy; Grace sprang to her father's neck, and Sir
John Vincent, who had been in attendance sitting near the judge all the
trial through, came down to him, and shook his hand warmly.

Roger's eyes ran over, and he could only utter,

"Thank God! thank God! He does better for me than I deserved." But the
court was hushed at last: the jury resworn; certain legal forms and
technicalities speedily attended to, as counts of indictment, and so
forth: and the judge then quietly said,

"Simon Jennings, stand at that bar."

He stood there like an image.

"My lurd, I claim to be prisoner's counsel."

"Mr. Sharp--the prisoner shall have proper assistance by all means; but
I do not see how it will help your case, if you cannot get your client
to plead not guilty."

While Mr. Philip Sharp converses earnestly with the criminal in
confidential whispers, I will entertain the sagacious reader with a few
admirable lines I have just cut out of a newspaper: they are headed

"SUPPRESSION OF TRUTH AND EXCLUSION OF EVIDENCE.

"Lawyers abhor any short cut to the truth. The pursuit is the thing for
their pleasure and profit, and all their rules are framed for making the
most of it.

"Crime is to them precisely what the fox is to the sportsman: and the
object is not to pounce on it, and capture it at once, but to have a
good run for it, and to exhibit skill and address in the chase. Whether
the culprit or the fox escape or not, is a matter of indifference, the
run being the main thing.

"The punishment of crime is as foreign to the object of lawyers, as the
extirpation of the fox is to that of sportsmen. The sportsman, because
he hunts the fox, sees in the summary destruction of the fox by the hand
of a clown, a