THE ACADEMICAL SPEAKER. 157 with the law and constitution for your guides, you can pronounce the respondent guilty. I declare, that I have seen no case of wilful and corrupt official misconduct, set forth according to the requisition of the constitution, and proved according to the common rules of evidence. I see many things imprudent and ill-judged; many things that I could wish had been otherwise; but corruption and crime I do not see. Sir, the prejudices of the day will soon be forgotten; the passions, if any there be, which have excited or favoured this prosecution, will subside; but the consequence of the judgment, you are about to render, will outlive both them and you. The respondent is now brought, a single, unprotected individual, to this formidable bar of judgment, to stand against the power and authority of the State. I know you can crush him, as he stands before you, and clothed, as you are, with the sovereignty of the State. You have the power, 6 to change his countenance, and send him away. Nor do I remind you that your judgment is to be rejudged by the community; and, as you have summoned him for trial to this high tribunal, you are soon to descend yourselves from the seats of justice, and stand before the higher tribunal of the world. I would not fail so much in respect to this honourable Court, as to hint that it could pronounce a sentence which the community will reverse. No, sir, it is not the world's revision, which I would call on you to regard; but that of your own consciences, when years have gone by, and you shall look back on the sentence you are about to render. If you send away the respondent, condemned and sentenced, from your bar, you are yet to meet him in the world, on which you cast him out. You will be called to behold him a disgrace to his family, a sorrow and a shame to his children, a living fountain of grief and agony to himself. If you shall then be able to behold him only as an unjust judge, whom vengeance has overtaken, and justice has blasted, you will be able to look upon him, not without pity, but yet without remorse. But, if, on the other hand, you shall see, whenever and wherever you meet him, a victim of prejudice or of passion, a sacrifice to a transient excitement; if you shall see in him, a man, for whose con will he be able to turn the current of compassion backward, and to look with pity on those who have been his judges. If you are about to visit this respondent with a judgment which shall blast this house; if the bosoms of the innocent and the amiable are to be made to bleed under your infliction, I beseech you to be able to state clear and strong grounds for your proceedings. Prejudice and excitement are transitory, and will pass away. Political expediency, in matters of judicature, is a false and hollow principle, and will never satisfy the conscience of him, who is fearful that he may have given a hasty judgment. I earnestly entreat you, for your own sakes, to possess yourselves of solid reasons, founded in truth and justice, for the judgment you pronounce, which you can carry with you, till you go down into your graves; reasons, which it will require no argument to revive, no sophistry, no excitement, no regard to popular favour, to render satisfactory to your consciences; reasons which you can appeal to, in every crisis of your lives, and which shall be able to assure you, in your own great extremity, that you have not judged a fellow-creature without mercy. Sir, I have done with the case of this individual, and now leave him in your hands. I hold up before him the broad shield of the constitution; if through that he be pierced and fall, he will be but one sufferer, in a conmon catastrophe. SHOUT for the mighty men, Who died along this shore Who died within this mountain's glen! Was laid on Valour's crimson bed, Nor ever prouder gore Rushed-a storm of sword and spear ;- Let loose from an immortal hand, But there are none to hear; Greece is a hopeless slave. LEONIDAS! no hand is near The voice that should be raised by men, And it is given!—the surge— The tree-the rock-the sand- Still gleams within the glorious dell, And is thy grandeur done? Mother of men like these! Has not thy outcry gone, Where Justice has an ear to hear?- Are plunged the chain and scimitar, TYROLESE WAR SONG. THERE's a cloud in the sky, We have sworn by the blood We have sworn by that God, Which our forefathers gave us. We have sworn by our love, And the mountains around us. We have ta'en our last look- Down, down with the rocks Cut away-cut away, With the stones and the trees, And let France long remember And wo be to him, 'Mid the thousands beneath, Whom the Tyrolese marks There's a spell in his eye, Now, now is the time, While our standard still waves, DUKE OF MILAN PLEADING HIS CAUSE BEFORE CHARLES V. Massinger. I COME not, Emperor, t'invade thy mercy, By fawning on thy fortune; nor bring with me I profess I was thine enemy: And with my utmost powers and deepest counsels, Now, give me leave (My hate against thyself, and love to him And, though my fortunes (poor compared to his, If that, then, to be grateful For courtesies received, or not to leave Amongst you Spaniards, Sforza brings his head To pay the forfeit. Nor come I as a slave, |