263 

 THE STATE TRIAL. 



THE last government farce at Abingdon has gone off with very ques- 

 tionable eclat. Dennis Collins, in all the pride, pomp, and circum- 

 stance, that hedge a traitor, with the additional glory of " a new wooden 

 leg, made for the occasion the old one, as well as the clothes he wore 

 when he committed the assault, having been purchased by a French 

 lady, who, for the sake of possessing these relics, gave Collins new 

 clothes for old ones " has been doomed to be drawn upon a hurdle, 

 to be hanged, decapitated, and cut into quarters, to appease the insulted 

 Zamiels, who, like their great prototype, clothed all in red, with mystic 

 syllables, horrid visages, and saucer eyes, stalk as the body-guard of 

 modern loyalty. However, whilst we write, Dennis Collins yet lives, 

 an iniquitous ex-pensioner, his majesty having defrauded Temple-bar 

 of the prisoner's head, and some of his loyal cities of the wretch's 

 quarters. The Times says, " we have the best reason to believe that this 

 act of mercy was done at the express desire of the king, and it is, we 

 confess, no more than we expected from the manly and generous spirit 

 of his majesty," This is all very fine, but why was the miscreant tried ? 

 why was there arrayed against him such a dread power of wigs and 

 silk gowns ? why did the judges meet, " a terrible show," only like so- 

 lemn big boys, to play at trials ? We speak advisedly, when we state it 

 as our fixed opinion, that the exercise of the " manly and generous 

 spirit of his majesty" is not only very ill-timed, but will be productive 

 of great disappointment to very many of his living subjects. Had Col- 

 lins been sent to gaol as a rogue and vagabond, why his case would have 

 perished in that obscurity which enshrouds the nocturnal ravages of 

 breakers of lamps or bell-wires ; but when he became a state-prisoner, 

 when he was enrolled with the Russells and the Sidneys, when the flint 

 which he threw, instead of sharing the vulgar fate of a pebble hurled at 

 a parish square of glass, became, at least to the lawyers, the philosopher's 

 stone, expectation was naturally set on tip-toe, and in anticipation 

 stretched its loyal neck, and opened its affectionate eyes, to watch the 

 ceremony which should cause Dennis Collins to die the death of a traitor. 

 As seven cities contended for the birth of Homer, so have seven cities 

 quarrelled-^-though they ordered matters very quietly for the quarters 

 of Dennis Collins. The mail that should have conveyed, ticketed and 

 franked by the royal seal, " to the right-trusty mayor and Corporation 

 of York," a quarter of Collins, for the especial decoration of the city- 

 gates, would also have conveyed a great moral lesson, in which the wis- 

 dom of the whig schoolmaster would have most conspicuously shone. 

 York has much to complain of, but the disappointment of its authorities 

 will not be fully sympathized with ; it is only those individuals who, 

 with connexions in a sporting county, may have reasonably expected a 

 haunch of venison from a friend, and have found that friend and the 

 venison wanting, can judge of the poignant annoyance inflicted on the 

 corporations of York, Bristol, Canterbury &c., by the, we repeat it, ill- 

 timed compassion of his majesty. We had hoped that Dennis Collins 

 was to be carved as a dish for mayors and aldermen he is to be put 

 aside with living foot-pads, pick-pockets, and petty larceny knaves. 

 Really he is a most expensive piece of furniture for the hulks ; it would 



