But the prisoner is not my object: I turn rather to the lawyer. Here then do we not see the accomplished gentleman--the finished scholar--the man of refinement and of learning, of character and station--standing forth the very embodiment of the individual in the dock? possessed of all his secrets--animated by the same hopes--penetrated by the same fears--he endeavours by all the subtle ingenuity, with which craft and habit have gifted him, to confound the testimony--to disparage the truth--to pervert the inferences of all the witnesses. In fact, he employs all the stratagems of his calling, all the ingenuity of his mind, all the subtlety of his wit for the one end--that the man he believes in his own heart guilty, may, on the oaths of twelve honest men, be pronounced innocent. From the opening of the trial to its close, this mental gladiator is an object of wonder and dread. Scarcely a quality of the human mind is not exhibited by him in the brilliant panorama of his intellect. At first, the patient perusal of a complex and wordy indictment occupies him exclusively: he then proceeds to cross-examine the witnesses--flattering this one--brow-beating that--suggesting--insinuating--amplifying, or retrenching, as the evidence would seem to favour or be adverse to his client. He is alternately confident and doubtful, headlong and hesitating--now hurried away on the full tide of his eloquence he expatiates in beautiful generalities on the glorious institution of trial by jury, and apostrophizes justice; or now, with broken utterance and plaintive voice, he supplicates the jury to be patient, and be careful in the decision they may come to. He implores them to remember that when they leave that court, and return to the happy comforts of their home, conscience will follow them, and the everlasting question crave for answer within them--were they sure of this man's guilt? He teaches them how fallacious are all human tests; he magnifies the slightest discrepancy of evidence into a broad and sweeping contradiction; and while, with a prophetic menace, he pictures forth the undying remorse that pursues him who sheds innocent blood, he dismisses them with an affecting picture of mental agony so great--of suffering so heartrending, that, as they retire to the jury-room, there is not a man of the twelve that has not more or less of a _personal_ interest in the acquittal of the prisoner.