PLEADING FOR A SON'S LIFE. 231 



in summer clothes. Let the senate reflect how much he 

 must have patiently endured ! The advocate opposed to 

 him was a clever man, and he had suggested many things 

 that Gianbatista should have done, but they were all 

 absurd. And what could a boy then do, tried as he was, 

 if so learned and acute a lawyer had himself no sensible 

 alternatives that he was able to suggest ? 



Speaking next of the person of the offender, the advo- 

 cate became lost in the father. Surely the youth was 

 worthy of excuse and pardon a youth, simple of wit as 

 any in the state and for his age, the Scripture pleaded, 

 Remember not, O Lord, the sins of my youth. How few 

 of the most sacred senators had not erred gravely as 

 young men ! Had not all reason to be thankful, as he him- 

 self was, that they had been spared that hard test of their 

 strength under which his child had fallen? He spoke of 

 his own past errors, and, forgetting his advocacy for a 

 moment, cried, " I thank God, by whom I am chastised 

 through my son, that I may be reserved perhaps for 

 greater mercies." 



" But he was so simple that he had no more prudence 

 than a boy of ten years old, though not without aptitude 

 for study. He was deaf of one ear, and in a miserable 

 childhood endured much, for he was the partner of all 

 my days of hardship." And the advocate then became 

 nothing but the grey-headed old man, the father strug- 



