laws of this country so bounteously supply—those times of great hilarity and eating to the legal gentry,
"Who feed on crime 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."[1] To be sure not, Richard Hooker, you are perfectly right. The divinity of a sessions, and the inspiration of the Old Bailey, are undeniable!
The care of Sir William Brandon had effectually kept from Lucy's ear the knowledge of her lover's ignominious situation. Indeed, in her de-
- ↑ Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.
