“Yet, Mr. Northcote,” the old man went on, “if I say this of your cross-examination, which as far as you are concerned was a thing of the moment, a mere piece of _esprit_ thrown off without premeditation, what shall I say of that address with which you conquered all who listened to it? I speak no longer as a judge, Mr. Northcote; my livery is laid by. As I sat there in court with every chord in my heart responsive to the noble music of your voice, I felt that you had brought home to me that the time had come when I had ceased to be of service to the public. I shall take my seat on the bench no more. But henceforward I shall always carry your words in my heart. They were noble words, nobly spoken; nature has been almost wantonly lavish to you in her gifts. It has been given to you, a young man, to show that the completest abasement of human nature is not in the gutter. I read the deeper and the truer meaning that was innermost, the divine message that was unfolded by the deep vibrations of your singularly beautiful voice. You revealed to one in that court, Mr. Northcote, who should have been engaged in performing his duty to the public, that no sore festers in our social life to-day like the organized degradation of the police-court, where learning, wisdom, courage, and integrity are debased to even fouler depths than the gutter by their constant traffic in human misery. Many times, Mr. Northcote, have I cowered in spirits since I have been called to my office, but it has remained for you, a young advocate, a fledgling of a newer and grander generation, which will touch this material world of ours to finer issues--it has remained for you to knock at the door of the citadel of the oldest of his Majesty’s judges, and to put questions that he cannot answer. You forced him to say to himself, ‘Tell me, Joseph Brudenell, what law you are obeying when you take your seat on these cushions, and you endeavor to fulfil the functions of the office to which you have allowed yourself to be called?’ “When, Mr. Northcote, in the height of your conviction you dared to swear in your own jury, you made every member of it actual and visible to me. You may have been uttering a profounder truth than you knew--which is one of the many prerogatives of genius--when you asserted that every one of those fearful and unhappy tradesmen had that jury within him in the jury-box. As you pointed out, we are the heirs of all the ages: the prisoner and the policeman, the advocate and the judge. And he whom you caused this jury of yours to elect as their foreman showed to me how responsible and authentic that jury was. By the magic, Mr. Northcote, in which you deal, you not only evoked that foreman in the spirit, but by some miracle you clothed him in flesh. That was a terrible achievement. It was the first occasion that the redeemer of mankind was seen to be in the occupation of a seat at the court of Old Bailey.