Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/277

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PAUL CLIFFORD.
269

my learned friend; but to treasure these my errors in your recollection, and to consider them as so many arguments in favour of the Prisoner. If, Gentlemen, I could, by any possibility, imagine that your verdict would be favourable to the Prisoner, I can, unaffectedly and from the bottom of my heart, declare to you that I should rejoice; a case might be lost, but a fellow-creature would be saved! Callous as we of the legal profession are believed, we have feelings like you; and I ask any one of you Gentlemen of the Jury, any one who has ever felt the pleasures of social intercourse, the joy of charity, the heart's reward of benevolence,—I ask any one of you, whether, if he were placed in the arduous situation I now hold, all the persuasions of vanity would not vanish at once from his mind, and whether his defeat as an advocate, would not be rendered dear to him by the common and fleshly sympathies of a man! But, Gentlemen,—(Mr. Dyebright's voice at once deepened and faltered,)—there is a duty, a painful duty, we owe to our country; and never, in the long course of my professional experience, do I remember an instance in