“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!”
This praise to the chancellor, who is a known friend to Mr. Hastings, though I believe he would be the last to favour him unjustly now he is on trial, was a pleasant sound to my ear, and confirmed my original idea of the liberal disposition of my new associate. I joined heartily in the commendation, and warmly praised his speech.
“Even a degree of pompousness,” cried I, “in such a court as this, seems a propriety.”
“Yes,” said he “but his speech had one word that might as well have been let alone: ‘mere allegations’ he called the charges; the word ‘mere,’ at least, might have been spared, especially as it is already strongly suspected on which side he leans!”
I protested, and with truth, I had not heard the word in his speech; but he still affirmed it.
“Surely,” I said, “he was as fair and impartial as possible: he called the accusers ‘so respectable!’”
“Yes, but ‘mere—mere’ was no word for this occasion and it could not be unguarded, for he would never come to speak in such a court as this, without some little thinking beforehand. However, he is a fine fellow,—a very fine fellow! and though, in his private life, guilty of so many inaccuracies, in his public capacity I really hold him to be unexceptionable.”
This fairness, from an oppositionist professed, brought me at once to easy terms with him. I begged him to inform me for what reason, at the end of the chancellor’s speech, there had been a cry of “Hear! hear! hear him!” which had led me to expect another speech, when I found no other seemed intended. He laughed very much, and confessed that, as a parliament man, he was so used to that absurdity, that he had ceased to regard it; for that it was merely a mark of approbation to a speech already spoken; “And, in fact, they only,” cried he, “say ‘Hear!’ when there is nothing more to be heard!” Then, still looking at the scene before him, he suddenly laughed, and said, “I must not, to Miss Burney, make this remark, but-it is observable that in the king’s box sit the Hawkesbury family, while, next to the Speaker, who is here as a sort of representative of the king, sits Major Scott!”