 with such a heavy sense of the responsibility
imposed upon him - a responsibility, he would say, which he could never have
supported, were he not buoyed up and sustained by a conviction so strong, that
it amounted to positive certainty that the cause of truth and justice, or, in
other words, the cause of his much-injured and most oppressed client, must
prevail with the high-minded and intelligent dozen of men whom he now saw in
that box before him.
    Counsel usually begin in this way, because it puts the jury on the very best
terms with themselves, and makes them think what sharp fellows they must be. A
visible effect was produced immediately; several jurymen beginning to take
voluminous notes with the utmost eagerness.
    »You have heard from my learned friend, gentlemen,« continued Serjeant
Buzfuz, well knowing that, from the learned friend alluded to, the gentlemen of
the jury had heard just nothing at all - »you have heard from my learned friend,
gentlemen, that this is an action for a breach of promise of marriage, in which
the damages are laid at £1,500. But you have not heard from my learned friend,
inasmuch as it did not come within my learned friend's province to tell you,
what are the facts and circumstances of the case. Those facts and circumstances,
gentlemen, you shall hear detailed by me, and proved by the unimpeachable female
whom I will place in that box before you.«
    Here Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, with a tremendous emphasis on the word box, smote
his table with a mighty sound, and glanced at Dodson and Fogg, who nodded
admiration of the serjeant, and indignant defiance of the defendant.
    »The plaintiff, gentlemen,« continued Serjeant Buzfuz, in a soft and
melancholy voice, »the plaintiff is a widow; yes, gentlemen, a widow. The late
Mr. Bardell, after enjoying, for many years, the esteem and confidence of his
sovereign, as one of the guardians of his royal revenues, glided almost
imperceptibly from the world, to seek elsewhere for that repose and peace which
a custom-house can never afford.«
    At this pathetic description of the decease of Mr. Bardell, who had been
knocked on the head with a quart-pot in a public-house cellar, the learned
serjeant's voice faltered, and he proceeded with emotion:
    »Some time before his death, he had stamped his likeness upon a little boy.
With this little boy, the only pledge of her departed exciseman, Mrs. Bardell
shrunk from the world,
