bring the weal-public into jeopardy and hazard". And thus he has,
all through the dismal history, "shaked his head, and made a wry
mouth, and held his peace". Except--a glorious exception!--when
such lawyers as Bacon, More, Blackstone, Romilly, and--let us ever
gratefully remember--in later times Mr. Basil Montagu, have striven,
each in his day, within the utmost limits of the endurance of the
mistaken feeling of the people or the legislature of the time, to
champion and maintain the truth.

There is another and a stronger reason still, why a criminal judge
is a bad witness in favour of the punishment of Death. He is a
chief actor in the terrible drama of a trial, where the life or
death of a fellow creature is at issue. No one who has seen such a
trial can fail to know, or can ever forget, its intense interest. I
care not how painful this interest is to the good, wise judge upon
the bench. I admit its painful nature, and the judge's goodness and
wisdom to the fullest extent--but I submit that his prominent share
in the excitement of such a trial, and the dread mystery involved,
has a tendency to bewilder and confuse the judge upon the general
subject of that penalty. I know the solemn pause before the
verdict, the bush and stifling of the fever in the court, the
solitary figure brought back to the bar, and standing there,
observed of all the outstretched heads and gleaming eyes, to be next
minute stricken dead as one may say, among them. I know the thrill
that goes round when the black cap is put on, and how there will be
shrieks among the women, and a taking out of some one in a swoon;
and, when the judge's faltering voice delivers sentence, how awfully
the prisoner and he confront each other; two mere men, destined one
day, however far removed from one another at this time, to stand
alike as suppliants at the bar of God. I know all this, I can