Of argument run glibly to their goal!"
He pretends to "paint a saint," whom he can still speak of, in tones of earnest admiration, as "wily as an eel." His implied concessions and merely parenthetic denials, his abominable insinuations and suggestions, come, evidently enough, from the instincts of a grovelling mind, literally incapable of appreciating goodness, as well as from professional irritation at one who will
"Leave a lawyer nothing to excuse,
Reason away and show his skill about."
The whole speech is a capital bit of satire and irony; it is comically clever and delightfully exasperating.
After the lawyers have spoken, we have the final judgment, the summing-up and laying bare of the whole matter, fact and motive, in the soliloquy of The Pope. Guido has been tried and found guilty, but, on appeal, the case had been referred to the Pope, Innocent XII. His decision is made; he has been studying the case from early morning, and now, at the
"Dim
Droop of a sombre February day,
In the plain closet where he does such work,
With, from all Peter's treasury, one stool,