English Causes Clbres Or Reports Of Remarkable Trials

Author : George L. Craik
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9781330717271
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (172 download)

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Download or read book English Causes Celebres written by George L. Craik and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-07-04 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from English Causes Celebres: Or Reports of Remarkable Trials This work aims at presenting, in a popular form, everything that can be made generally interesting in an extensive but little explored department of our literature, the records of proceedings of all kinds in Courts of Justice. There is no richer store-house of curious and authentic facts illustrative of human character and conduct. Even what are called civil cases, or pleas between private parties relating merely to rights of property or to injuries for which compensation is sought in pecuniary damages, sometimes bring out the most extraordinary scenes of life or conflicts of evidence. Witness the famous Douglas cause. In so far, again, as trials at law nave had for their object the investigation of crime, they are a history of passion and adventure often as exciting as any fiction, with all the impressiveness and substantial value of truth. The contemplation of the mere naked act of crime, indeed, is neither very salutary, nor very attractive to minds of any cultivation; but the disclosures on a trial have seldom much reference to that; their absorbing interest is commonly derived from other sources altogether: first, from the train of circumstances which led to the conception of the crime, the education, habits, and character of the criminal, his temptations and prompting opportunities; secondly, from the course of means by which he pursued his object, frequently displaying talent and courage of a high order, but generally wading deeper in guilt at every step, and committing many crimes in order to compass one; thirdly, from the progress of the evidence upon which the fate of the accused person hangs suspended, often in the trembling balance of life and death. These are all sources of interest, not only of a legitimate kind, but even of a moral character, fraught with instruction and improvement for head and heart. And as for the power of such details to take hold of the imagination, all experience testifies to that. There are few things that enchain the attention of all sorts of people like the chain of evidence in an interesting trial at law. Some of the most successful fictions have been in the main merely imaginary trials at law - ingeniously contrived imitations of the same long, apparently conflicting, but ultimately concurring, trains of incident, the gradual development of which keeps curiosity on the stretch in a real trial. Godwin's Caleb Williams is an instance. But such fictions are usually in many things as false to nature as they are in fact; in default of the rare inventive genius of a Fielding or a Defoe, which emulates the opulence and variety as well as the truthful air of real life, the author is tempted to resort to exaggeration and distortion, and all the tricks of a low species of art, in order to produce effect: he seeks to move the feelings of his readers by the comparatively easy labour of bringing out into bold relief the mere physique and external expression of his subject, which it is the business of art, properly so called, of high and truly poetic art, always to keep down, and to present in subordination to the workings of the inner spirit of the scene or story. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.