Life of R.B. Sheridan, vol 2 | Page 8

in violation of the late purchased treaty, left to prey on the finances of the Nabob, he says,--
"Here we find they were left, as heavy a weight upon the Nabob as ever,--left there with as keen an appetite, though not so clamorous. They were reclining on the roots and shades of that spacious tree, which their predecessors had stripped branch and bough--watching with eager eyes the first budding of a future prosperity, and of the opening harvest which they considered as the prey of their perseverance and rapacity."
We have in the close of the following passage, a specimen of that lofty style, in which, as if under the influence of Eastern associations, almost all the Managers of this Trial occasionally indulged: [Footnote: Much of this, however, is to be set down to the gratuitous bombast of the Reporter. Mr. Fox, for instance, is made to say, "Yes, my Lords, happy is it for the world, that the penetrating gaze of Providence searches after man, and in the dark den where he has stifled the remonstrances of conscience darts his compulsatory ray, that, bursting the secrecy of guilt, drives the criminal frantic to confession and expiation." _History of the Trial._--Even one of the Counsel, Mr. Dallas, is represented as having caught this Oriental contagion, to such a degree as to express himself in the following manner:--"We are now, however, (said the Counsel,) advancing from the star-light of Circumstance to the day-light of Discovery: the sun of Certainty is melting the darkness, and--we are arrived at facts admitted by both parties!"]--
"I do not mean to say that Mr. Middleton had direct instructions from Mr. Hastings,--that he told him to go and give that fallacious assurance to the Nabob,--that he had that order under his hand. No, but in looking attentively over Mr. Middleton's correspondence, you will find him say, upon a more important occasion, 'I don't expect your public authority for this;--it is enough if you but hint your pleasure.' He knew him well; he could interpret every nod and motion of that head; he understood the glances of that eye which sealed the perdition of nations, and at whose throne Princes waited, in pale expectation, for their fortune or their doom."
The following is one of those labored passages, of which the orator himself was perhaps most proud, but in which the effort to be eloquent is too visible, and the effect, accordingly, falls short of the pretension:--
"You see how Truth--empowered by that will which gives a giant's nerve to an infant's arm--has burst the monstrous mass of fraud that has endeavored to suppress it.--It calls now to Your Lordships, in the weak but clear tone of that Cherub, Innocence, whose voice is more persuasive than eloquence, more convincing than argument, whose look is supplication, whose tone is conviction,--it calls upon you for redress, it calls upon you for vengeance upon the oppressor, and points its heaven-directed hand to the detested, but unrepenting author of its wrongs!"
His description of the desolation brought upon some provinces of Oude by the misgovernment of Colonel Hannay, and of the insurrection at Goruckpore against that officer in consequence, is, perhaps, the most masterly portion of the whole speech:--
"If we could suppose a person to have come suddenly into the country unacquainted with any circumstances that had passed since the days of Sujah ul Dowlah, he would naturally ask--what cruel hand has wrought this wide desolation, what barbarian foe has invaded the country, has desolated its fields, depopulated its villages? He would ask, what disputed succession, civil rage, or frenzy of the inhabitants, had induced them to act in hostility to the words of God, and the beauteous works of man? He would ask what religious zeal or frenzy had added to the mad despair and horrors of war? The ruin is unlike any thing that appears recorded in any age; it looks like neither the barbarities of men, nor the judgments of vindictive heaven. There is a waste of desolation, as if caused by fell destroyers, never meaning to return and making but a short period of their rapacity. It looks as if some fabled monster had made its passage through the country, whose pestiferous breath had blasted more than its voracious appetite could devour."
"If there had been any men in the country, who had not their hearts and souls so subdued by fear, as to refuse to speak the truth at all upon such a subject, they would have told him, there had been no war since the time of Sujah ul Dowlah,--tyrant, indeed, as he was, but then deeply regretted by his subjects--that no hostile blow of any enemy had been struck in that land--that there had been no disputed succession--no civil war--no religious frenzy. But that these were the tokens of British friendship,