Grimaldi forgets the name of the prosecutor's counsel,[41] and regrets the circumstance very much, observing that the lengthened notice which he bestowed upon him ought to have impressed his name on his memory. If this notice were flattering on account of its length, it certainly was not so in any other respect; inasmuch as the gentleman in question, in the exercise of that licence which many practitioners unaccustomed to briefs assume, was pleased to designate the principal witness for the prisoner, to wit, Mr. Joseph Grimaldi, as a common player, a mountebank-stroller, a man reared in and ever accustomed to vice in its most repulsive and degrading forms--a man who was necessarily a systematic liar--and, in fine, a man upon whose word or oath no thinking person could place any reliance. During this exordium, and pending the logical deductions of the ingenious gentleman whose name is unhappily lost to his country, the prisoner eyed his witness with intense anxiety, fearing, no doubt, that in his examination, either by angry words, or by attempting to retort on the counsel, or by volunteering jokes, or by seeking revenge upon himself, against whom he had such just ground of complaint, he might pass the rope round his neck, instead of serving his cause; but his fears were needless. His witness had gone there to discharge what he considered a solemn duty; and, apart from all personal considerations, to give his honest testimony in a case involving a man's life and death. He went there, of course, prepared to give his evidence in the manner best befitting himself and the occasion; and, if he wanted any additional incentive to caution and coolness, he would have found it in the taunts of the opposing counsel, which naturally made him desirous to show, by his behaviour, that the same man who could play the clown upon a public stage could conduct himself with perfect propriety as a private individual--in the same way as many young gentlemen, who are offensive in wigs, become harmless and obscure in social life.