keep clearly in view the main question in dispute, that he may make every thing bear to that end; otherwise he will be very liable to wander from the point, and bewilder both himself and his hearers. And no less important is this clearness of perception and discrimination to judge and jury, who sometimes find it no easy matter, amid the multitude of arguments and agreeable digressions of a skillful advocate, to separate that which is offered in proof from that which is only brought in for illustration.

LESSON CXXI.

THE TRIAL OF ROBERT EMMET.

[In the month of September, 1803, Robert Emmet, then only twenty-three years of age, was brought to trial in the city of Dublin on a charge of high treason, for plotting and instigating a rebellion against the British government. He was found guilty of taking an active part in an attack upon the castle and arsenals of Dublin, and was condemned, and executed for the crime.

We give, first, the closing part of the speech of the Attorney General in the case, which is admirable for the just and noble sentiments which it conveys.]

FROM THE ATTORNEY GENERAL'S SPEECH.

1. Gentlemen of the Jury:-If I have said any thing to incite within you an additional indignation against the crime of treason, I am not sorry for having done so; but I do not mean, in expressing my horror of the crime, to prejudice you against the criminal. On the contrary, in proportion to the enormity of the crime, should the presumption be that he has not committed it.

2. I must also request, if you have heard, before this day, any thing unfavorable to the prisoner, that you will endeavor to forget it. Popular rumor should be entirely forgotten; that which may have been matter of idle conversation should not work against the prisoner at the awful moment of trial. In the weighing of evidence, every former feeling of your minds against the prisoner must be forgotten; and you must give him the full benefit of any defense which he may make, and dispassionately consider the nature of his vindication. You have the life of a fellow-subject in your hands, and, by the peculiar benignity of our

laws, he is presumed to be innocent until your verdict shall find him guilty.

3. But, in leaning against a bias, you must not take a direction the other way. You must bear in mind that you have a most solemn duty to discharge to your country and to your God; and if it shall appear that the prisoner was the prime mover of this rebellion—that he was the spring which gave it life and activity, then, I say, as you regard the obligation of the oaths which you have taken, and the solemn responsibilities which they devolve upon you, you must give a truthful verdict. It is not for you to separate punishment from guilt; and you must not allow any false feeling of pity for the man to warp your judgment against the claims of public justice.

LESSON CXXII.

EXTRACT FROM EMMET'S SPEECH.

[After hearing the evidence, which was full and decisive against the prisoner, and listening to the charge of the judge, Lord Norbury, the jury, without leaving their seats, pronounced the prisoner guilty. When asked what he had to say why judgment of death and execution should not be awarded against him according to law, he arose, and, standing forward in the dock in front of the bench, made an impromptu address. Of his speech, which occupies seven octavo pages in the original, only brief extracts can here be given.

It was his country's degradation, and the sufferings of her people from British misrule, that touched the heart of the noble-minded Emmet; and, although the insurrection, which he seems to have planned, was insane in the last degree, yet the Eloquence and pathos evinced in his dying speech, and the courage with which he met his fate, have won universal admiration.]

1. My Lords:-What have I to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me according to law? I have nothing to say that can alter your predetermination, or that it would become me to say, with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are here to pronounce, and which I must abide. But I have much to say which interests me more than that life which you have labored to destroy. I have much to say why my reputation should be. rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been heaped upon it.

2. Were I only to suffer death after being adjudged guilty

by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur. But the sentence of the law, which delivers my body to the executioner, will, through the ministry of that law, labor, in its own vindication, to consign my character to obloquy; for there must be guilt somewhere-whether in the sentence of the court or in the catastrophe, posterity must determine.

3. When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port; when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood on the scaffold and in the field in defense of their country and virtue-this is my hope: I wish that my memory and name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most High. (Here he was interrupted and severely rebuked by the judge.)

4. My lord, shall a dying man be denied the legal privilege of exculpating himself, in the eyes of the community, from an undeserved reproach thrown upon him during his trial by charging him with ambition, and with attempting to cast away, for a paltry consideration, the liberties of his country? Why, then, insult me? or, rather, why insult justice, in demanding of me why sentence of death should not be pronounced? (Here he was told to proceed.)

5. I am charged with being an emissary of France'! An emissary of France'! And for what end'? It is alleged that I wished to sell the independence of my country! And for what end? Was this the object of my ambition? and is this the mode by which a tribunal of justice reconciles contradictions? No, I am no emissary. My ambition was to hold a place among the deliverers of my country; not in power nor in profit, but in the glory of the achievement!

6. Sell my country's independence to France! And for what? For a change of masters? No; but for ambition! Oh my country, was it personal ambition that could influence me? Had it been the soul of my actions, could I not, by my education and fortune, by the rank and consideration of my family, have placed myself among the proudest of my

country's oppressors? My country was my idol. To it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment; and for it I now offer up my life.

7. No, my lord; I acted as an Irishman, determined on delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign and unrelenting tyranny; and from the more galling yoke of a domestic faction, its joint partner and perpetrator in the patricide, and whose reward is the ignominy of existing with an exterior of splendor, and a consciousness of depravity. It was the wish of my heart to extricate my country from this doubly-riveted despotism. I wished to place her independence beyond the reach of any power on earth. I wished to exalt her to that proud station in the world which Providence had fitted her to fill.

8. Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor. Let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence, or that I could have become the pliant minion of power in the oppression and the miseries of my countrymen.

9. I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the domestic tyrant. In the dignity of freedom I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and her enemy should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived but for my country, who have subjected myself to the vengeance of the jealous and watchful oppressor, and now to the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights -am I to be loaded with calumny, and not suffered to resent or repel it? No: Heaven forbid!

10. If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who were dear to them in this transitory life, oh, ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father! look down with scrutiny upon the conduct of your suffering son, and see if I have, even for a moment, deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to instill into my youthful mind, and for an adherence to which I am now to offer up my life! (Here he was again interrupted by the judge.)

11. My lords, you seem impatient for the sacrifice. The blood for which you thirst is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim; it circulates, warmly and unruffled, through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which you are bent to destroy for purposes so grievous that they cry to Heaven-Be yet patient! I have but a few words more to say. My lamp of life is nearly extinguished. My race is run. The grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom.

12. I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world-it is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for, as no one who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country shall take her place among the nations of the earth-then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written!

LESSON CXXIII.

PATRICK HENRY'S FIRST SPEECH.

WILLIAM WIRT.

[By an early law of Virginia, each minister of the Established Church (Episcopalian) was entitled to receive an annual stipend of 16,000 pounds of tobacco. For a long time the price of tobacco remained at twopence a pound; but a season of scarcity coming on, the Legislature passed an act allowing the people to pay in money, at the rate of twopence a pound. The clergy demurred: the king and council declared the act null and void; and the courts had already decided in favor of the clergy, when Patrick Henry undertook to argue the final case for the people, on a writ of inquiry as to the amount of damages. It was the occasion of his first speech in public; and, what added to his embarrassment, his father sat as one of the judges in the case.]

1. AND now came on the first trial of Patrick Henry's strength. No one had ever heard him speak, and curiosity was on tiptoe. He rose very awkwardly, and faltered much in his exordium. The people hung their heads at so unpromising a commencement; the clergy were observed to exchange sly looks with one another; and Henry's father is described as having almost sunk with confusion from his

seat.