There are, however, difficulties almost peculiar to the more serious offences against the state, but which are entirely different, in their nature, from those imaginary difficulties which have formed the subject of so much declamation. A passing glance at the proceedings now pending in Ireland, will give the most casual observer some idea of what is sometimes to be encountered by those to whom is entrusted the arduous duty of conducting a state prosecution. Look back on the "tempest of provocation," which recently assailed the Irish Attorney-General, on the vexatious delays and frivolous objections which sprang up at every move of the crown lawyers, called forth by one who, though "_not valiant_," was well known to the government to be "most cunning offence" ere they challenged him, but who, "despite his cunning fence and active practice," may perhaps find, that this time the law has clutched him with a grasp of iron. In ordinary cases, criminals may, no doubt, be easily convicted; and in the great majority of the more common crimes and misdemeanours, the utmost legal ingenuity and acumen might be unable to detect a single error in the proceedings, from first to last. Still it must be remembered, that even among the more common of ordinary cases, in which the forms are simple, the practice certain, and in which the law may be supposed to be already defined beyond the possibility of doubt, error, or misconception--even in such cases, questions occasionally arise which scarcely admit of any satisfactory solution--questions in which the fifteen judges, to whom they may be referred, often find it impossible to agree, and which may therefore be reasonably supposed to be sufficiently perplexing to the rest of the world. State offences, such as treason and sedition, which are of comparatively rare occurrence, present many questions of greater intricacy than any other class of crimes. In treason especially, a well-founded jealousy of the power and prerogatives of the crown has intrenched the subject behind a line of outposts, in the shape of forms and preliminary proceedings; the accused, for his greater security against a power which, if unwatched, might become arbitrary and oppressive, has been invested with rights which must be respected and complied with, and by the neglect of which the whole proceedings are rendered null and void. At this moment, in all treasons, except attempts upon the person of the sovereign, "the prisoner," in the language of Lord Erskine, "is covered all over with the armour of the law;" and there must be twice the amount of evidence which would be legally competent to establish his guilt in a criminal prosecution for any other offence, even by the meanest and most helpless of mankind. Sedition is a head of crime of a somewhat vague and indeterminate character, and, in many cases, it may he extremely difficult, even for an acute and practised lawyer, to decide whether the circumstances amount to sedition.