even offered to give a housekeeper, a woman of credit and respectability—­a fellow-servant of this fine gentleman before you—­such worn-out rags as these?  Would you have thought it worthy of consideration, if such a servant had thought proper to appropriate to her own use a cart-load of this trumpery?  If the poor woman did remove out of sight such trash as this, all I say is, that she seems to have had more respect for the credit and honour of that noble house than any of the people whose ridiculous pretensions to honesty have persecuted her and exhibited themselves here. Gentlemen and Ladies, witnesses!  I have done with you; you may all leave the court!”

They were all glad to take him at the first word, and in a few minutes not one of them was to be seen.  “I have heard,” he continued, “of the pride of a noble house, and of its poverty, being nearly allied; but here we have all the poverty and none of the pride!” Some one unluckily said that the things were not all in that torn state.  “What,” said he, with the utmost contempt, looking to the party, “is there any one that wishes to exhibit his devoted baseness?  Let him not whisper here behind my back, but come forward and get into the box.”  He paused, and had no further interruption.  “To you, Gentlemen of the Jury, I appeal.  I ask you if you have seen enough of the rags of this noble family?” and he pulled out the worst piece of the linen, and held it at arm’s length during the greater part of a taunting speech of the same kind:  then, throwing it contemptuously from him—­“Away, away, I say, with these rags of the noble family of N——!” (and some one gathered up all together, and took them out of court)—­“and God grant that they may never rise up in judgment against them!  Poor, weak, foolish woman! she took them as her perquisite.  Perquisite indeed! her folly was her fault; for you have seen that they were not worth the taking.

“Gentlemen of the Jury, I cannot believe that you will lend yourselves to such a grovelling prosecution—­persecution, as this.  I pause not to investigate where the evil spirit arose, in principles or agents, against this injured and calumniated female.  If the great ones of our earth will disgrace themselves—­if they will listen to the suggestions of envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, I trust that you, more humble members of the community, will not be partakers of these evil passions.  Where the prosecutor has sustained no personal fear and no personal loss, it is impossible that any offence can have been committed.  You are not twelve despots sitting upon a case of high treason against the game-laws, and are to have your consciences racked, to bring in a verdict of trespass, where no damage can be proved; you are not required to strain right against justice and honesty.  What is the offence?  How is our Lord the King or his subjects aggrieved?  Those rags!—­I know not what the splendid household of the Duke may require for matches and