Few, even among the most accomplished weavers of narrative, can equal the skill with which a clever lawyer details the story of a criminal trial. The orderly sequence in which the facts occur; the neat equipoise in which matters are weighed; the rigid insistence upon some points, the insinuated probabilities and the likelihood of others,--are all arranged and combined with a masterly power that more discursive fancies would fail in. Events and incidents that to common intelligence appear to have no bearing on the case, arise, like unexpected witnesses, at intervals, to corroborate this, or to insinuate that. Time, place, distance, locality, the laws of light and sound, the phenomena of science, are all invoked, not with the abstruse pedantry of a bookworm, but with the ready-witted acuteness of one who has studied mankind in the party-colored page of real life. To any one unaccustomed to these efforts, the effect produced is almost miraculous: conviction steals in from so many sources, that the mind, like a city assaulted on every side, is captured almost at once. All the force of cause and effect is often imparted to matters which are merely consecutive; and it requires patient consideration to disembarrass a case of much that is merely insinuated, and more that is actually speculative. In the present instance everything was circumstantial; but so much the more did it impress all who listened, even to him who, leaning on the rails of the dock, now heard with wonderment how terribly consistent were all the events which seemed to point him out as guilty. After a brief exordium, in which he professed his deep sorrow at the duty which had devolved on him, and his ardent desire to suffer nothing to escape him with reference to the prisoner save what the interests of truth and justice imperatively might call for, the Attorney-General entered upon a narrative of the last day of Mr. Kennyfeck's life; detailing with minute precision his departure from Tubbermore at an early hour in Mr. Cashel's company, and stating how something bordering upon altercation between them was overheard by the bystanders as they drove away. “The words themselves, few and unimportant as they might seem,” added he, “under common circumstances, come before us with a terrible significance when remembered in connection with the horrible event that followed.” He then traced their course to Drumcoologan, where differences of opinion, trivial, some might call them, but of importance to call for weighty consideration here, repeatedly occurred respecting the tenantry and the management of the estate. These would all be proved by competent witnesses, he alleged; and he desired the jury to bear in mind that such testimony should be taken as that of men much more disposed to think and speak well of Mr. Cashel, whose very spendthrift tastes had the character of virtues in the peasants eyes, in contrast with the careful and more scrupulous discretion practised by “the agent.”