This eBook was produced by Bryan Sherman and David Widger PAUL CLIFFORD, Volume 7. By Edward Bulwer-Lytton CHAPTER XXXIV. O Fortuna, viris invida fortibus Quam non aqua bonis praemia dividis. SENECA. . . . . . . . . . . . . And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, Pants to the place from whence at first he flew. . . . . . . . . . . . . Here, to the houseless child of want, My door is open still. GOLDSMITH. Slowly for Lucy waned the weeks of a winter which to her was the most dreary portion of life she had ever passed. It became the time for the judge to attend one of those periodical visitations so fraught with dread and dismay to the miserable inmates of the dark abodes which the complex laws of this country so bounteously supply,--those times of great hilarity and eating to the legal gentry,-- "Who feed on crimes and fatten on distress, And wring vile mirth from suffering's last excess." Ah! excellent order of the world, which it is so wicked to disturb! How miraculously beautiful must be that system which makes wine out of the scorching tears of guilt; and from the suffocating suspense, the agonized fear, the compelled and self-mocking bravery, the awful sentence, the despairing death-pang of one man, furnishes the smirking expectation of fees, the jovial meeting, and the mercenary holiday to another! "Of Law, nothing less can be said than that her seat is the bosom of God."-- [Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.]--To be sure not; Richard Hooker, you are perfectly right. The divinity of a sessions and the inspiration of the Old Bailey are undeniable!