CHAPTER XXIII.
DEATH OF MR. BRIGGS; SUMMER ASSIZES, 1844; “REMINISCENCES OF JUDGES’ COURTS;” “REMINISCENCES OF GEORGE CANNING.”
The spring of the year 1844 was overclouded by domestic affliction. Mr. Briggs, the much esteemed relative of Mrs. Opie, had, for some time past, been suffering from pulmonary disorder; and as he expressed a desire to see her, she was prepared to expect the summons, which was not long delayed. On the 9th of January she wrote:—
I do so enjoy my home. In a morning I am only too full of company; but when at nightfall I draw my sofa round, for a long evening to myself, I have such a feeling of thankfulness!—and so I ought. It is well to see how the burden is fitted to the back by our merciful Father. I have been a lone woman through life; an only child! a childless widow! All my nearest ties engrossed by nearer ones of their own. If I did not love to be alone, and enjoy the privileges leisure gives, what would have become of me!—but I love my lot, and every year it grows dearer still—though parting with beloved friends throws, for a while, a deep shadow over my path. * * *
And even now the shadow was upon her. Six days after she writes:—
I go on my melancholy journey to-morrow, scarcely expecting to see my poor cousin alive; but he wishes to see me, and it is therefore my duty to go.
She remained with him to the last, and touchingly describes the closing scenes. When all was over, she said:—
Going into his gallery of pictures, where so many, alas! are unfinished, reminds me so powerfully of bygone days, when I stood in my own gallery, where finished and unfinished pictures abounded!
This melancholy visit was the last Mrs. Opie paid to the metropolis for a long period. During the next four years she was closely engaged in attendance upon her aged aunt, Mrs. E. Alderson, and seldom left Norwich for more than a few days at a time.
After her return home she wrote to Miss Gurney:—
5th mo. 7th.
My dearest A.,
* * * I fear that I shall feel the loss of London and the Meeting, but at present I do not; for the duty and necessity of staying where I am, is more evident every day, because my aunt is become so dependent upon me, that I could trust no one to attend to her wants but myself. I have sent a large box full of repository purchases to M. G. to-day. I kept shop.[[43]] I have seen A. Hodgkin at Meeting and at the Grove; her husband had a public meeting last night, and has again to-morrow. Such ministry as J. H.’s last night is what is rarely heard, and never, I believe, but in a Friends’ Meeting! It was soul-searching; and I only wished hundreds could have heard it. * * *
Mrs. Opie was present in court, during the summer assizes of this year. She writes:—
I heartily enjoyed the Courts, the Judges, and the High Sheriff, and every part of my entourage. I was more in the Nisi Prius Court than in the Criminal; but the last morning I found myself let in, to hear a woman tried for poisoning her baby with laudanum. I should have fled instantly, had I not been assured, by the chaplain of the jail, and others, that, on the plea of insanity, she would be found not guilty; and, to my speedy relief, the Judge would not allow the trial to go on. By the bye, he is a very pleasing and clever Judge, (Williams,) and cordially humane; and, though a little man, he has a remarkable degree of dignity in his appearance and manner on the Bench; his eye, too, is very fine in shape and expression. In the year ’20 I said to Sir G. Phillips, at a party at his house, “who is that little man in the window-seat, with those very fine eyes?” “That little man, it is expected, will prove himself a great man to-morrow; for he is the third counsel employed to defend the Queen, and his turn comes to-morrow morning.” I then little thought I should see him here so frequently as Judge.
The other evening, while Baron Alderson and the High Sheriff and I were talking together, in the Judges’ room, (they waiting for the other Judge’s finishing a trial he was engaged upon,) Sir E. asked me how I was going home? on which the High Sheriff, seizing my hand, said, “Oh! she shall go with us, we will take her home.” I drew back, of course, not believing he could be in earnest! but the Judge said “yes! let us take her.” I still resisted, but Edward pulled me on, saying “come brother Opie!” as he tucked me under his arm; the High Sheriff led the way, and into the carriage I jumped, ashamed, but pleased; and I sat by my cousin, and the astonished chaplain sat opposite the Judge, wondering and laughing. We set the Judge down first, then the High Sheriff set me down, and went back for Justice Williams. Little did I think I should ever ride behind four horses, harnessed, and two outriders, with trumpets, &c.! But I must own that the Judge ordered the trumpets to remain behind, as they were not going in state, and to drive fast in order to come back soon. So much for the escapade of a grave Judge and High Sheriff.
Here is a note in which Mrs. Opie invited the writer to accompany her to the scene she afterwards described.
My dear C. L.,
The Judges always, as I believe, go to church first, and take the sacrament afterwards. But I always go early, to be sure of a good seat, so I mean to call thee at nine, and we can talk there as well as here—and the time will soon fly! I went in a chariot-fly to see them come in. Farewell! little dear; I fear thou art a lazy-bones—but indeed—by ten I have often seen the best places filled. Often, how often, both as a young and old woman, have I been in that court by half-past seven in the morning—was this time twelvemonth.
A. O.
Among Mrs. Opie’s papers left in an unfinished state, was one headed “Reminiscences of Judges’ Courts,” written in 1844. It was probably intended for publication, but never completed; in the following pages the reader will find the principal parts of it.
Hark! the bells are ringing their loudest, merriest peal, and at intervals are heard the deep tones of trumpets! Those sounds proclaim that the Judges have entered the city, and are about to open their Commission in the Court of our ancient Castle, and that the next day they will begin their momentous task.
Alas! I lament that the ringing of bells, which usually proclaims a wedding, and other joyful events, should be employed to welcome those who come to fulfil the painful office of sitting in judgment on their fellow creatures, and condemning many of them, perhaps, to long imprisonment, exile, or death.
Would that this custom were always discontinued, and trumpets heard alone; because the sound of the latter is not that of rejoicing, but of solemn preparation. It is a call, a summons, and one sometimes of fearful augury.
It is calculated also to excite in the minds of the prisoners salutary emotions, and prepare them for the scene that awaits them; while the joyful peal, which makes itself heard into their cell, drowning all other sounds, and seeming to insult their misery, calls forth in them feelings of indignant bitterness.
Let me add, that while the higher orders seem to consider the assize week as a time for public amusements, though many of the lower classes are undergoing every variety of anxious suspense, and some perhaps awaiting the terrors of the Law, the consciousness of this painful truth may have a hardening effect on the surrounding population, whose sympathies are with their poorer brethren at the bar, not with those in the theatre or the ball-room; and whatever has a tendency to excite, among the former, a belief that their sufferings are forgotten, or viewed with indifference by their superiors, may lessen that love and confidence in the higher ranks, on which so much of the safety of society depends.
That week has always possessed for me an attraction of an intellectual kind, which at present I still feel irresistible; I mean attendance in the Nisi Prius Court—a love for which has “grown with my growth, and strengthened with my strength;” and certainly it has not become weaker since I have had the gratification of seeing on the judgment seat a near and dear relative, and sometimes also a highly esteemed friend.
The interest excited by the Criminal Court is often painfully strong, even though such a blessed change has taken place in the penal law.
Horace Walpole (who hated capital punishments) says in one of his letters, that whenever he heard any one was being tried for his life, he always earnestly desired he might be acquitted; and so strongly do I compassionate the prisoner, that I never attend a trial for murder, and am only at my ease in the Civil Court. And there I am, at a very early hour, in order to secure my favorite place in it, and before any preparations for business are begun. Nor is it without interest that I look round the empty Hall, and at the large table covered with green cloth, where the barristers and attornies sit, and think that soon the vacant seats will be filled with busy, anxious life, and the stillness exchanged for the hum of many voices! and absorbed and amused in the contemplation of the coming scene, I find the time of waiting pass almost imperceptibly away. But at length the solitude ceases—the necessary preparations are made by the attendants, and soon the bells and trumpets announce the approach of the great functionaries. To greetings, and the hum of voices, succeeds the silence of expectation; for silent become the bells and trumpets; and, in another moment, the Judge is in the Court; the barristers rise, as he courteously salutes them, and the business begins.
After a short process, twelve jurymen are sworn in—to me a most disagreeable ceremony—though the oath is repeated now with less rapidity than it used to be; still I always rejoice when it is over.
The leaders now take their places—a cause comes on—the junior counsel employed in it reads aloud to the jury the particulars of the case. The leader then rises, explains and comments on its merits, artfully warning the jury against the eloquence and sophistical arguments which his learned brother will, he knows, bring forward for the defence; but which he is very certain of proving vain and nugatory by the witnesses whom he can, without fear, expose to the powerful battery of his learned brother’s cross-examination. After a long and often eloquent speech, the counsel for the plaintiff calls his witnesses; by each of them, when called into the witness box, the oath is taken, and each in his turn is subjected to the fiery ordeal of cross-examination. Then rises the counsel for the defendant, hoping, and sometimes very justly, that cross-examination has shaken the testimony of the plaintiff’s witnesses; he tells the jury that though his own eloquence has been so warmly lauded by his obliging and learned brother, he has himself too mean an opinion of it to presume to rest on that his client’s cause; nor does he rest it on his arguments alone, though they are not sophistical, as his learned friend calls them. No! his only weapon will be the force of truth; for he shall bring forward facts; facts which he shall prove by witnesses, whose evidence not even his brother’s well-known power of cross-examination can shake; and he shall also prove that, whether from unintentional inaccuracy in their statements, from defective memory, or an utter disregard to truth, the plaintiff’s witnesses have borne testimony which was utterly false; he is sure, he says, to obtain a verdict for his client. Then comes “the tug of war,” and such a view of the case is presented, that it changes, no doubt, the opinion of many minds, (my own, for instance,) and of the probable result we form a very different expectation to what we previously entertained. But the first speaker, having left himself a right to reply, then rises again; after having opened on the defendant’s witnesses, the formidable field-piece of his cross-examination; and, that done, he is doubtless, not the less warm and powerful in argument, now that he feels his client’s cause is in more danger than when he opened the case, and that for the last time he fights for ultimate victory; at length he sits down, expressing his certainty of obtaining it!
Oh! bloodless fights! would that we should never hear again of any battles but these!
But now another interesting period has arrived—the judge is about to speak: he has not been silent during the proceedings; but has made many observations, and asked questions of the witnesses on both sides; and now, much to the refreshment of short memories, he sums up the whole proceedings, and delivers his charge to the jury; going over every tittle of the evidence with surprising accuracy. The Clerk of Arraigns then says, “Consider your verdict, gentlemen!” the jury then turn their faces to the wall, and form so peculiar a group, that were an artist to draw them, no one could imagine, I think, what they were meant to represent, unless well acquainted with courts of justice. * * *
There are certain persons at the barristers’ table, whose position is calculated to excite the sympathy of observers, and who have often awakened mine on their behalf; namely, the young lawyers, who have, perhaps, gone circuit after circuit, and still remain briefless barristers. This must be a painful situation; and I have been much gratified, when it has occasionally happened to me to see a usually unemployed barrister, with flushed cheek, opening, it may be, his first brief in that court, and, with beating heart, preparing to enter the legal arena. Gratifying indeed must it be, to a young man of talent, when at length some fortunate circumstance gives him the long-desired opportunity to distinguish himself, which was all, perhaps, that he required to rise in a short time to the head of his profession; and how enviable must be his feelings, when he looks back to departed hours, passed in vain expectation of business, sitting unobserved at that crowded table, making to himself employment by nibbing his pen, or cutting his pencil to write notes to a brother barrister, at a distance; and then, contrasts with that trying period, his present position, when he has scarcely time to sit, except when his opponent in a cause is speaking. Now, he is the “observed of all observers,” and feels that on his skill in argument, and on his powers of elocution and persuasive appeal, depend, perhaps, the future well being and happiness of many of his fellow-creatures, who have entrusted to him the vindication of their rights, and sometimes of their reputation. Anxiety must indeed be felt by barristers on every circuit, even whether they have attained, or not, the greatest eminence; since it is as necessary for them to retain, as to gain, that eminence. The advocate, therefore, pleads for his own as well as his client’s cause, when he puts forth all the energies of his voice, his gesture, and his mind, on the legal stage; and could address his audience in the words of the poet: “Alas! I feel I am no actor here!”
One of the attractions in the Nisi Prius Court is the agreeable surprises which one experiences in it. I have known a cause, promising at the beginning, to be very dull and uninteresting, become, as it went on, one of great interest and entertainment; for instance, a horse case, where the warranty of the horse is the subject brought forward, and many amusing witnesses are examined; or a right of way cause, as I believe it is technically called.
On such occasions I have seen the old, and even the infirm, put into the witness box to give evidence, neatly dressed in their Sunday clothes, and seeming to enjoy their temporary importance; and I have gazed with interest, which at length, perhaps, became painful, on the sharpened features, almost seeming prepared for death; and listened to the feeble voice striving in vain to perform the required task, and make the testimony it bore heard by the judge.
I have often asked myself why it is that I, and many others, can sit from early morning till evening in a court of justice, with still increasing interest? and the answer has been, that it proceeds from that general and enduring passion, the love of excitement.
Those courts are epitomes of human life, and their walls, within their bounded space, contain beings full of the passions, infirmities, resentments, self-deceits, self-interests, fears, hopes, triumphs, and defeats, incident to our common nature, and the proofs and results of which are there painfully brought before us.
A court of justice may be likened to a stage, the principal performers on which are the barristers; and happiest are they who have the most frequent opportunities of moving the feelings, and influencing the convictions, of that respectable audience—a British jury.
A Nisi Prius cause is a new drama, brought before the jury as the audience; but with this great difference between a play and a cause—the actors in it, on one side only, are interested in its success.
One great advantage which assize courts possess over the theatre, is the certainty we have, that all the emotions we behold are real, not acted, and springing from the exigences of the moment; that the eloquent energy of the pleaders, the replies of the witnesses, and, alas! the fearful perjury sometimes elicited by cross-examination, together with every outbreak of tongue, are not only like the representations of great actors, “faithful to nature in the mimic scenes,” but are nature itself!
There is another reason why, in my opinion, the interests in a Court of Justice come more forcibly to the heart than that of representations on the stage. It is that, while contemplating the dramas of real life, as exhibited in a Court of Law, we have an undefined consciousness that we are liable to be ourselves, one day, performers in similar scenes, and worried by the same difficulties, experiencing, either in our own person or that of those dear to us, the trials and anxieties we see there endured by others.
My theories on this subject may be deemed fanciful and untrue, and the charge may be a just one; but, whatever be the cause of the pleasure which I take in attending Courts of Justice, I hope it is an innocent gratification, and no undue waste of time, as the opportunities occur only twice in the year, and rarely last longer than a week. It is also my conviction that whatever brings us acquainted with, and interested in the affairs and well being of our fellow creatures, in their varied stations and positions in society, may have a beneficial influence on our hearts, minds, and characters.
Another short “Reminiscence,” which was written about this time, will show how her thoughts went back to the days of her youth, and with what tenacity her memory retained the most minute details of bygone scenes and events.
I was never (she writes) so fortunate as to be in company with that celebrated man George Canning, but at a very early period of his life and mine, he was brought, by circumstances, under my admiring observation. An aunt of his was married to a clergyman in Norwich, and lived there, and when he was at Eton he used to pass part of his holidays at her house.
He had already distinguished himself by his poetical talents, and the Eton boy had given promise of what the man might be. During one of his visits to his aunt, there was a benefit concert given at our Assembly Rooms, to which I was chaperoned by an old lady of my acquaintance. Till the middle of the first Act we were able to hear and enjoy the music, but then our attention was disturbed by the entrance of George Canning’s aunt, with a large party. Unfortunately, they took their seats before us, and instead of listening to the music, began to converse, as if nothing was going on. I was not so much annoyed as I otherwise should have been, because I was told that the young man before me was the Eton boy, whose productions had been so much admired. I was, therefore, interested in examining his countenance, and was pleased to hear his voice, though exerted during a violin concerto!
But I shared at length in the displeasure of my companion, who, finding the predestined orator becoming more and more vociferous, gave him a rap on the shoulder with her fan, and when he turned round, astonished at the blow, shook her head at him reproachfully. He understood the appeal, and bowed his head gracefully and respectfully in return; nor did he offend again, but evidently reproved the talkativeness of his party. This delighted my old lady and still more myself. The feeling and well-bred youth, did not yet think he had made sufficient amends; and as soon as the Act was concluded he came up to my aged friend, and, with an ingenuous blush on his cheek, he said, “I am very sorry, ma’am, that I interfered with your pleasure by my talking just now, and am really ashamed of myself, pray excuse me; I assure you I will not offend again.” The old lady received the apology as graciously as it was made; and my young heart rejoiced to find that this boy, in spite of the head-turning honours which were his at this early period, was possessed of, what a long life’s observation has taught me to believe is almost the rarest quality, namely, a due consideration for the rights of others in little things. From that time he possessed a higher niche in my esteem, than his successes at Eton could have given him.
Many years elapsed before I saw him again; for though I became rather intimate with his aunt, he never visited at the house while I happened to be one of the guests; and at an early period of my life, the family quitted Norwich. But I saw him soon after he obtained a seat in Parliament, (1793,) and when the Pitt administration had won the young orator from his early political friends, and ranked him amongst their adherents. At the time to which I allude he was standing on Windsor Terrace, bare headed; his cheek evidently flushed with pleasurable emotion, and listening to George the Third, who, with the Queen, and the Royal Family, was taking his evening walk there. The Royal party stopped some time before the young member, and it was with an emotion of pleasure that I saw him thus publicly distinguished by his Sovereign.
The last time I beheld him, was in the Hall of Buckingham House, when the Queen and Regent received at that palace, and he was returning from a levée. With what increased interest did I then behold him; he was then in middle life, but I saw the same character of face, and features, as when I was interested in the Eton boy. How different was now his bearing; how different the character of his person altogether! There was a degree of dignity in his mien, and a loftiness in the carriage of his head, which a well-founded consciousness of his importance in the scale of society would naturally give, at the same time, there was a slight expression of sadness in his smiles; yet he might be justly called the child of prosperous ambition! His talents had raised him to the highest offices of the state; his eloquence was the delight of his friends, and the terror of his enemies; he had formed a high and happy connexion in marriage; he was admired by his opponents, and loved by his intimates; and it seemed as if this world could bestow on him nothing more!
But even then, the corroding cares of public life and their awful responsibilities, were, no doubt, preparing to fasten on his heart, and gradually destroy the functions of life. Stormy grew the political horizon during the years that ensued; though on the whole, he may be said (to use his own words) “to have weathered the storm;” and, at the period of his untimely death, he seemed to have overcome every prejudice against him; and when he fell a victim to his public duties, a universal lamentation attended his exit, and a universal plaudit!
Among his mourners, none was more sincere than myself, and rarely, even yet, do I pass his statue, without breathing a sigh to his memory, and exclaiming, as I gaze on that sculptured form, “Oh rare George Canning!”
| [43] | This alludes to Mrs. Opie’s keeping a table at the yearly sale of the Repository, for the Norwich Sick poor Society; this she did during many years, and an admirable saleswoman she was. On one of these occasions she wrote to a friend, “Simeon’s Life is most precious to me. I have had extracts from it made, and printed, to be sold at the Repository.” |