on the "hideous and ignominious" figure before him, contrived to fall exhausted, almost fainting, into the outstretched arms of Burke. Altogether, it was magnificent team-work.

Fox, when his turn came, did not create, or, rather, maintain a good impression. He seemed at ease and in good humor for a moment, then fell into a passionate fit of vehemence, and as suddenly resumed his careless and disengaged air. On the whole, he was not convincing. Twenty years later one of this trio, Sheridan, tried to apologize to Hastings in an off-hand way, saying, saying, "Of course "Of course you know we public speakers are expected to employ telling effects; it's our business." But Hastings would not admit the necessity, and ignored his outstretched hand. Of his feelings during all these torrents of oratory, he has left a record. "I was bewildered and for a time fascinated," he said, "by the immense vigor and energy with which I was attacked, and felt for half an hour the most culpable man on earth; but the feeling passed, and I knew in my heart that I was innocent of the infamous charges brought against me."

It could not be expected that society would forever give over all its customary amusements to attend a trial, however famous. For a time it was the talk of the town. But a theatrical tempest soon becomes wearisome; stage thunder and stage lightning seldom kill. Hastings had been admitted to bail, he moved about in society undisturbed, he bought the Dayles

ford estate, and took a town house in Park Lane. At intervals the trial went on; it was a long, tedious, and costly proceeding.

We know upon unimpeachable authority how observing a young woman was Fanny Burney, at that time second Keeper of the Robes to Queen Charlotte, with a residence at Windsor. At first Fanny was delighted at the privilege of attending the sittings at Westminster Hall, and she stored up in her mind all the interesting or amusing incidents, for recital when she got home; for the King, as he told her, preferred her narrative to any other; but gradually her interest, too, waned. The submission of long and complicated evidence is never an interesting proceeding for the on-looker, and week after week, and month after month, and year after year, it continued. She would have liked to be excused from further attendance, and suggested that the Hall was draughty and that she might catch cold; but the Queen told her to wrap up well." It amused the King to listen to her account of the proceedings, and Majesty's wishes must be gratified.

What had at first been looked upon as the most important event of a reign full of interesting, dramatic, and scandalous incidents became at last an awful bore; and as it gave no promise of ever coming to an end, actors and audience alike became desperate. Hastings cried, "For God's sake end the matter one way or another; the expense is ruinous." "The Managers" had the public treasury behind them; but as Hastings was obliged to defray his expenses

out of his own pocket, bankruptcy stared him in the face. Several years elapsed before his side had an opportunity to present its argument; and when finally Edward Law came to be heard, he gave by way of introduction the entire history of English affairs in India. It was probably the first and only clear and consecutive account of what the trial really was about. The "trash and rubbish," as Thurlow called the arguments presented by "the Managers," was designed to bewilder and befog rather than to enlighten the group of gouty old gentlemen assembled in all their magnificence to hear and sift the evidence presented to them.

Not being a Philadelphia lawyer, I have been unable to discover upon what theory the trial proceeded. Who were the judges? The peers of the realm, it would seem. Were they required to hear, or did they even pretend to hear, the evidence? Not after a little. Were they constant in their attendance? No. It so happened that, as the trial progressed, death took them, at first one by one, and then by little groups, and their places were taken by others; so that many who heard the defense of Hastings knew little and cared less about the attack that had been made upon him several years before. Indeed, it would appear that, although the legal machinery of the nation had been set in motion, it was not, in the usual sense, a trial at law at all.

The lawyers who entered into the proceeding did so because they saw an immense opportunity for fame and fortune. That was not a bad idea of Fred

erick, yclept the Great, that, if the lawyers about him could not settle a difficulty in court within a year from the time they began, then he would step in and settle it out of hand. Curiously, the rewards for non-success at the bar are frequently greater than those crowning successful effort. What other profession is so fortunate? A doctor makes a mistake and the patient dies — then and there is an end; but when the lawyer makes a mistake, he merely makes a motion for a new trial or takes the case to a higher court, and asks for a further retainer. I have a friend who takes a legal decision as reverently as Moses took the Ten Commandments on the top of Mount Ararat - if that was the name of the mountain from which "Thou shalt not" was sent reverberating through the ages. I once heard him say, "The joy of the law - I would permit him to go no further. "The joy of the law," I interrupted, "is in writing briefly, 'To Services Rendered,' having in mind the sum your client is likely to have in bank, and doubling it. But this is a digression.

No student of eighteenth-century affairs will neglect the caricaturist; these men held up to nature a distorting glass, in which everything is out of focus, but which nevertheless emphasizes what is especially characteristic. During much of the time when Hastings was in the public eye, the public was too much interested in the notorious escapades of the Prince of Wales with the beautiful Mrs. Fitzherbert to care very much what became of the former Governor-General of India. Nevertheless, caricatures

anent the trial were numerous, most of them being favorable to the prisoner. One, entitled the "Last Scene of the Managers' Farce," answers the very natural question, What has become of Philip Francis all this time? It rep

rising in glory from the clouds of calumny, while Burke

and Fox are in despair at the failure of their efforts; and behind is the crafty. face of Francis, that malevolent deus ex machina, with the legend, "No character in the farce, but very useful behind the scenes.'

What purported to be a series of

LETTERS

FROM

SIMPKIN THE SECOND,

TO HIS

"Letters from Simpkin the Second in London to his Dear Brother in Wales," an amusing skit written in doggerel, was much in vogue during the early years of the trial. Even Royalty enjoyed it. The salient features of the amusing spectacle were cleverly brought out, and it is clear that from the beginning Burke had the laboring oar. Difficulties as to the admissibility