every attempt to ward off destruction is defeated, as if by the
persevering malice of some superior power. We shall soon see the most
popular and influential attorney of the State driven from the case by an
awkward misunderstanding; another, hardly inferior, expire almost in
the very act of pleading it; and, finally, when the real criminal
comes forward, at the last moment, to avert the ruin which she has
involuntarily drawn down upon the head of her beloved master, and
take his place upon the scaffold, we shall behold her heroic offer of
self-sacrifice frustrated by influences the most unexpected,--political
influences which--with shame be it told--were sufficient to induce a
governor of Kentucky to withhold the exercise of executive clemency, the
most glorious prerogative intrusted to our chief magistrates, and
which it ought to have been a most pleasing privilege to grant: for,
incredible as it may seem, Governor ---- knew, when he signed the
death-warrant, that the man he was consigning to an ignominious grave
was innocent of the crime for which he was to suffer.

The trial was opened in the presence of a crowded assembly, among whom
it was easy to discern that general conviction of the prisoner's guilt
so chilling to the spirits of a defendant and his counsel, and so much
deprecated by the latter, because he knows too well how far it goes
toward a prejudgment of his cause. Several of the most prominent members
of the bar had been retained by the family of Mrs. Wilde to assist the
State's attorney in the prosecution. In the defence John Breckenridge
stood alone, needing no help; for all knew that whatever man could do in
behalf of his client would be done by him. The prisoner himself, upon
whom all eyes were turned, appeared dejected, but calm, like one who had
resigned all hope. The ominous foreboding, which had so overcome him on
the fatal morning of the murder, had never left him for a single moment.
From that hour he had looked upon himself as doomed, and had yielded