“‘Yes; and I may safely say I make a very impartial use of it: for since here I have sat, I have never discovered to which side I have been listening!’
“He laughed, but told me they were then running through the charges.
“‘And is it essential,’ cried I, ‘that they should so run them through that nobody can understand them? Is that a form of law?’
“He agreed to the absurdity; and then, looking still at the spectacle, which indeed is the most splendid I ever saw, arrested his eyes upon the Chancellor. ‘He looks very well from hence,’ cried he; ‘and how well he acquits himself on these solemn occasions! With what dignity, what loftiness, what high propriety, he comports himself!’...
“Suddenly, his eye dropped down upon poor Mr. Hastings: the expression of his face instantly lost the gaiety and ease with which it had addressed me; he stopped short in his remarks; he fixed his eyes steadfastly on this new, and but too interesting object, and after viewing him some time in a sort of earnest silence, he suddenly exclaimed, as if speaking to himself, and from an impulse irresistible—‘What a sight is that! to see that man, that small portion of human clay, that poor feeble machine of earth, enclosed now in that little space, brought to that Bar, a prisoner in a spot six foot square—and to reflect on his late power! Nations at his command! Princes prostrate at his feet!—What a change! how must he feel it!——’
“He stopped, and I said not a word. I was glad to see him thus impressed; I hoped it might soften his enmity. I found, by his manner, that he had never, from the Committee Box, looked at him....
“Recovering, now, from the strong emotion with which the sight of Mr. Hastings had filled him, he looked again around the Court, and pointed out several of the principal characters present, with arch and striking remarks upon each of them, all uttered with high spirit, but none with ill-nature.
“‘Pitt,’ cried he, ‘is not here!—a noble stroke that for the annals of his administration! A trial is brought on by the whole House of Commons in a body, and he is absent at the very opening! However,’ added he, with a very meaning laugh, ‘I’m glad of it, for ’tis to his eternal disgrace!’
“Mercy! thought I, what a friend to kindness is party!
“‘Do you see Scott?’ cried he.