All the various kinds of interest which belong
to the near and to the distant, to the present and to the past,
were collected on one spot and in one hour. All the talents and
all the accomplishments which are developed by liberty and
civilisation were now displayed, with every advantage that could
be derived both from co-operation and from contrast. Every step in
the proceedings carried the mind either backward, through many
troubled centuries, to the days when the foundations of our
constitution were laid; or far away, over boundless seas and
deserts, to dusky nations living under strange stars, worshipping
strange gods, and writing strange characters from right to left.
The High Court of Parliament was to sit, according to forms handed
down from the days of the Plantagenets, on an Englishman accused
of exercising tyranny over the lord of the holy city of Benares,
and over the ladies of the princely house of Oude.
"The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of
William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with acclamations at
the inauguration of thirty kings, the hall which had witnessed the
just sentence of Bacon and the just absolution of Somers, the hall
where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment awed and melted
a victorious party inflamed with just resentment, the hall where
Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice with the placid
courage which has half redeemed his fame.
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