out. He owns to everything with a strange
coolness, unfolds his schemes in a hard icy
voice, and proclaims candidly that Madame
Innocence was a poor common creature, of the
earth, earthy, and, on the whole, no better than
she should be. Our ears tingle as we hear him.
We are inclined— still the junior barristerial
element, by this time infatuated— to cast lots who
shall wait for him outside. But there is retribution
at hand, for Little Serjeant, crackling, detonating
all over, is now at his throat. What strange
feats he performs with that hapless officer! How
he shrieks at him; what contradictions he
involves him in; how he wrings from him—
though miserable Major strives to fence it off
desperately— a faltering confession of a debased
morality; then lets him go! Unwashed humanity
hiss and groan each questionable sentiment,
and hoot him loudly as he fades out into Erebus.

It comes round at last to the final scenes,
when it being known that brilliant Brightside is
about to thunder, all the world rushes down to
hear. His feats Parliamentary are well known,
and may be taken as earnest of this coming
effort; and it has been whispered abroad that
Brightside means to put his whole soul into
the speech, and make it his best work.
Unhappy Deputy Rhadamanthus has no peace,
being pressed ferociously for sitting accommodation.
Court has become endowed with a
strange expansiveness, and, full to bursting
before, is now made to stretch and hold about
twice as many. A dozen or so of Peers hem in
Rhadamanthus-in-Chief, and choke up his little
green pavilion. Barristerial element was heretofore
thought to be packed close with all economy
of space, but now, by means of hydraulic pressure,
space is made out for many more. I see
undignified exposure of legal legs, escaping from
gowns, and swinging in the air, while the legal
bodies to which they belong are perched
indecorously aloft on beams, adhering Heaven only
knows how. I am struck by faces, military
beyond dispute, with beards and moustaches
clearly of the dragoon pattern, clumsily disguised
in the professional wig. It is darkly whispered
that a complete suit of the trappings is to be
had on hire, for the sum of half-a-crown.
Witness-box, now disused, presents almost a
comic spectacle: being filled to bursting with
persons who have not come to give their testimony,
and who stand together sheepishly—
pilloried as it were— exposed to the gaze of all,
with a bearing ludicrously purposeless and
unmeaning. And here, now, hush again, and let
not a pin fall for some five hours to come; for
Brightside has risen slowly, and is going to
begin.

At first, a low measured stream, artfully
subdued, while he quietly insinuates himself into
our hearts. Gradually he begins to warm, the
colour mounts to his cheeks, and his long
arms swing like the even beats of a pendulum,
and mark time melodiously. Presently,
his voice begins to roll in full sonorous billows,
his sentences rise and fall with a touching and
melancholy music, and the long arms toss and
beat the air with a greater wildness: he is fast
warming and taking us all with him. Gentlemen
of the Jury, indeed! A phrase iterated perhaps,
in compliment to those twelve intelligent
burghers suspended in their gallery; but
he is really speaking to us, to the great sloping
vale of humanity washed and unwashed, to
the men with the fluttering scraps of paper,
who are now racing after him for bare life.
Withering denunciation, terrible gibbeting of
hapless Major Mephistopheles. He scourges
him with words, as with a flail; and his r's
roll fearfully as be brands "this wr-r-r-etched
man:"   he seems to have been worrying him
between his teeth savagely, and afterwards
to have flung him from him.  Away with
all the conventional restraints and that pure
sham of respect for the established decencies!
We know that good-natured Rhadamanthus-
in-Chief is with us in his heart, and will
not take such disrespect unkindly. So, as a
matter of course, when Brightside has wound
up with some splendid climax, and has paused
for one second, our whole theatre— boxes, pit,
and galleries— bursts in a stupendous crash
of encouragement. Feeble gesture of deprecation
from Deputy Rhadamanthus— an appeal more
ad misericordiam, than a menace ot the awful
terrors of the court. We vary the shape of this
testimony of our sympathies; now it is a low
murmur, now a groan, now a movement and
rustle of bodies popularly known as "sensation;"
periodically, the usual artillery crash
of applause. Brightside, now fully launched,
rides upon the storm— is borne along
triumphantly— his voice swings, too, in time with
those tossing arms of his. What tender music!
What artful cadences and dying falls! Splendid
tragedian! Weep on, gentle ladies, as he paints
the sorrows of his client! His own tones are
not altogether unbroken. See his figure now
bent down crouching low, as though he were
about to "d-r-rag" the body of his miserable
enemy from beneath the table. Hearken yet
again to his voice, now running in a low
sustained monotone, now piping shrilly in a high
and curious treble. There, he is done— has
sunk down into his well, exhausted— and we fly
to our feet and cheer.

Yet one day more, and Rhadamanthus-in-Chief
proceeds to charge— clearly, earnestly— and
considering how dreamy a thing is a charge, viewed
oratorically— with a certain power of eloquence.
At times we are tempted to burst into approbation,
but check ourselves in time, seeing the
indecorum of the thing. Finally, it is done,
and the twelve intelligent men have withdrawn.
Their gallery is the only vacant place now.
Crafty White Whisker, vigilant to the last, is
digging a pitfal— that is to say, is tendering
exceptions. We wait and wait on, until the darkness
has well set in, and the lamps are lighted.
They flare luridly on the swart faces of the great
unwashed, piled upon each other in a perfect
wall of human countenance. Barristerial
element chafes and fumes, and, by way of relaxation,
discusses the law of the case.  It is