hat there was truth in them at bottom, and a
truth new to him. He was not a person to let a truth sleep in his mind;
though it did not vegetate very quickly, it was sure ultimately to be
pursued into its consequences, and to affect his existing opinions. In
the instance before us, he saw Sheffield's principle was more or less
antagonistic to his own favourite maxim, that it was a duty to be
pleased with every one. Contradictions could not both be real: when an
affirmative was true, a negative was false. All doctrines could not be
equally sound: there was a right and a wrong. The theory of dogmatic
truth, as opposed to latitudinarianism (he did not know their names or
their history, or suspect what was going on within him), had in the
course of these his first terms, gradually begun to energise in his
mind. Let him but see the absurdities of the latitudinarian principle,
when carried out, and he is likely to be still more opposed to it.

Bateman, among his peculiarities, had a notion that bringing persons of
contrary sentiments together was the likeliest way of making a party
agreeable, or at least useful. He had done his best to give his
breakfast, to which our friends were invited, this element of
perfection; not, however, to his own satisfaction; for with all his
efforts, he had but picked up Mr. Freeborn, a young Evangelical Master,
with whom Sheffield was acquainted; a sharp, but not very wise freshman,
who, having been spoiled at home, and having plenty of money, professed
to be _aesthetic_, and kept his college authorities in a perpetual fidget
lest he should some morning wake up a Papist; and a friend of his, a
nice, modest-looking youth, who, like a mouse, had keen darting eyes,
and ate his bread and butter in absolute silence.

They had hardly seated themselves, and Sheffield was pouring out coffee,
and a plate of muffins was going round, and Bateman was engaged,
saucepan in hand, in the operation of landing his eggs, now boiled, upon
the table, when our flighty youth, whose name was White, observed how
beautiful the Catholic custom was of making eggs the emblem of the
Easter-festival. "It is truly Catholic," said he; "for it is retained in
parts of England, you have it in Russia, and in Rome itself, where an
egg is served up on every plate through the Easter-week, after being, I
believe, blessed; and it is as expressive and significant as it is
Catholic."

"Beautiful indeed!" said their host; "so pretty, so