woolsack, or at the red benches of the peers, or at the green benches of the Commons, without seeing something that reminded him of the instability of all human things, of the instability of power and fame and life, of the more lamentable instability of friendship. The great seal was borne before Lord Loughborough, who, when the trial commenced, was a fierce opponent of Mr. Pitt's government, and who was now a member of that government, while Thurlow, who presided in the court when it first sat, estranged from all his old allies, sat scowling among the junior barons. Of about a hundred and sixty nobles who walked in the procession on the first day, sixty had been laid in their family vaults. Still more affecting must have been the sight of the managers' box. What had become of that fair fellowship, so closely bound together by public and private ties, so replendent with every talent and accomplishment? It had been scattered by calamities more bitter than the bitterness of death. The great chiefs were still living, and still in the full vigor of their genius. But their friendship was at an end. It had been violently and publicly dissolved, with tears and stormy reproaches. If those men, once so dear to each other, were now compelled to meet for the purpose of managing the impeachment, they met as strangers whom public business had brought together, and behaved to each other with cold and distant civility. Burke had in his vortex whirled away Windham. Fox had been followed by Sheridan and Grey. Only twenty-nine Peers voted. Of these only six found. Hastings guilty on the charges relating to Cheyte Sing and to the Begums. On other charges, the majority in his favor was still greater. On some he was unanimously absolved. He was then called to the bar, was informed from the woolsack that the Lords had acquitted him, and was solemnly discharged. He bowed respectfully and retired. We have said that the decision had been fully expected. It was also generally approved. The length of his trial made him an object of compassion. It was thought, and not without reason, that, even if he was guilty, he was still an ill-used man, and that an impeachment of eight years was more than a sufficient punishment. It was also felt that, though, in the ordinary course of criminal law, a defendant is not allowed to set off his good actions against his crime, a great political cause should be tried on different principles, and that a man who had governed an empire during thirteen years might have done some very 'reprehensible things, and yet might be on the whole deserving of rewards and honors rather than of fine and imprisonment. THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. NOTES This passage is considered one of the finest pieces of descriptive writing in the English language. Macaulay had a glowing imagination and he makes us see the trial in Westminster Hall almost as vividly as if we were onlookers. Note how impres sive are his brief comments on the various actors in the scene. He begins by preparing us for a great event by dwelling on the history of the hall; then he describes the famous spectators, the counsel for the defense and the speakers for the prosecution. We are able through this preparation to enter into the spirit of the trial in a way that would be impossible otherwise. WORDS AND PHRASES Plantagenets: Kings of England in the Middle Ages. William Rufus: William II, son of William the Conqueror. Bacon: The famous Francis, Lord Bacon, who was found guilty of taking bribes while a judge. Somers: Lord, a great jurist. Strafford: Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, tried by the House of Lords and executed in 1641. Charles: Charles I, king of England, executed in 1649. Gibraltar : An English fortress on the Strait of Gibraltar in Spain which was vainly besieged by the Spanish in 1782. Prince of Wales: Afterward George IV. Siddons: Mrs. Scott Siddons, probably the greatest tragic actress of the English stage. Mens æqua in arduis: A calm mind amidst disturbances. Tacitus: A great Roman historian. Reynolds: Sir Joshua, the most famous of English painters. Managers: The members of the House of Commons who conducted the prosecution. Pitt: William Pitt, the younger, prime minister of England. Lord North: Prime minister of England from 1770 to 1782. Fox: Charles James, one of the greatest of English orators. Sheridan: Richard Brinsley, a famous orator and playwright. Demosthenes: The greatest of Greek orators. Company: The East India Company, which controlled India. Cheyte Sing: An Indian ruler ruined by Hastings. Princesses of Oude: Indian princesses whose maltreatment by Hastings awakened more indignation than any other of his crimes. States-General: The meeting of the French representatives in 1789 which began the French Revolution. Woolsack: The cushion stuffed with wool on which sits the Lord Chancellor, the presiding officer of the House of Lords. OLIVER GOLDSMITH To be the most beloved of English writers - what a title that is for a man? A wild youth, wayward, but full of tenderness and affection, quits the country village where his boyhood has been passed in happy musing, in idle shelter, in fond longing to see the great world out of doors, and achieve name and fortune; and after years of dire struggle and neglect and poverty, his heart turning back as fondly to his native place as it had longed eagerly for change when sheltered there, he writes a book and a poem, full of the recollections and feelings of home: he paints the friends and scenes of his youth, and peoples Auburn and Wakefield with remembrances of Lissoy. Wander he must, but he carries away a home relic with him, and dies with it on his breast. His nature is truant; in repose it longs for change, as on the journey it looks back for friends and quiet. He passes to-day in building an air-castle for to-morrow, or in writing yesterday's elegy; and he would fly away this hour, but that a cage and necessity keep him. What is the charm of his verse, of his style, and humor? His sweet regrets, his delicate compassion, his soft smile, his tremulous sympathy, the weakness which he admits? Your love for him is half pity. You come hot and tired from the day's battle, and this sweet minstrel sings to you. Who could harm the kind, vagrant harper? Whom did he ever hurt? He carries no weapon save the harp on which he plays to you; and with which he delights great and humble, young and old, the captains in the tents, or the soldiers round the fire, or the women and children in the villages, at whose porches he stops and sings his simple songs of love and beauty. With that sweet story of The Vicar of Wakefield he has found entry into every castle and hamlet in Europe. Oliver Goldsmith was born at Pallas, in the county of Longford, Ireland, in 1728. Two years after the child's birth, his father, Charles Goldsmith, removed his family to Lissoy, that sweet "Auburn " which every person who has read the poem sees in fancy. Here the kind parson brought up his eight children; and loving all the world, as his son says, fancied all the world loved him. He had a crowd of poor dependants besides those hungry children. He kept an open table, round which sat flatterers and poor friends who laughed at the honest rector's many jokes and ate the produce of his seventy acres of farm. The good Charles Goldsmith left but little provision for his hungry race when death summoned him; and one of his daughters being engaged to a squire of rather superior dignity, Charles Goldsmith impoverished the rest of his family to provide the girl with a 'dowry. The small-pox, which scourged all Europe at that time and ravaged the roses off the cheeks of half the world, fell foul of poor little Oliver's face when the child was eight years old and left him scarred and disfigured for his life. An old woman in his father's village taught him his |