and exaggeration of a fact than by the invention of a direct lie,—­but there is the additional danger of an honest misconception on his part; and every lawyer knows how hard it is for a dull witness to distinguish between the facts and his impressions of them, and how impossible it often is to make a witness detail the former without interpolating the latter.  But the greatest risk of all is that the jury themselves may misconstrue the circumstances, and draw unwarranted conclusions therefrom.  It is an awful assumption of responsibility to leap to conclusions in such cases, and the leap too often proves to have been made in the dark.  God help the wretch who is arraigned on suspicious appearances before a jury who believe that “circumstances won’t lie”! for the Justice that presides at such a trial is apt to prove as blind and capricious as Chance herself.  In reviewing the present trial in particular, one may well feel puzzled to decide which of these deities presided over its conduct.  A Greek or Roman would have said, Neither,—­but a greater than either,—­Fate; and we might almost adopt the old heathen notion, as we watch the downward course of the doomed gentleman from this point, and note how invariably every attempt to ward off destruction is defeated, as if by the persevering malice of some superior power.  We shall soon see the most popular and influential attorney of the State driven from the case by an awkward misunderstanding; another, hardly inferior, expire almost in the very act of pleading it; and, finally, when the real criminal comes forward, at the last moment, to avert the ruin which she has involuntarily drawn down upon the head of her beloved master, and take his place upon the scaffold, we shall behold her heroic offer of self-sacrifice frustrated by influences the most unexpected,—­political influences which—­with shame be it told—­were sufficient to induce a governor of Kentucky to withhold the exercise of executive clemency, the most glorious prerogative intrusted to our chief magistrates, and which it ought to have been a most pleasing privilege to grant:  for, incredible as it may seem, Governor ——­ knew, when he signed the death-warrant, that the man he was consigning to an ignominious grave was innocent of the crime for which he was to suffer.

The trial was opened in the presence of a crowded assembly, among whom it was easy to discern that general conviction of the prisoner’s guilt so chilling to the spirits of a defendant and his counsel, and so much deprecated by the latter, because he knows too well how far it goes toward a prejudgment of his cause.  Several of the most prominent members of the bar had been retained by the family of Mrs. Wilde to assist the State’s attorney in the prosecution.  In the defence John Breckenridge stood alone, needing no help; for all knew that whatever man could do in behalf of his client would be done by him.  The prisoner himself, upon whom all eyes were turned, appeared dejected, but calm, like one