ach, is an
argument in universal request: and it often happens that the argument so
produced really tells against the producer. So common is it that we forget
how boyish it is; but we are strikingly reminded when it actually comes
from a boy. In a certain police court, certain small boys were arraigned
for conspiring to hoot an obnoxious individual on his way from one of their
school exhibitions. This proceeding was necessary, because there seemed to
be a permanent conspiracy to annoy the gentleman; and the {240} masters did
not feel able to interfere in what took place outside the school. So the
boys were arraigned; and their friends, as silly in their way as
themselves, allowed one of them to make the defence, instead of employing
counsel; and did not even give them any useful hints. The defence was as
follows; and any one who does not see how richly it sets off the defences
of bigger boys in bigger matters has much to learn. The innocent conviction
that there was answer in the latter part is delightful. Of course fine and
recognizance followed.

A---- said the boys had received great provocation from B----. He was
constantly threatening them with a horsewhip which he carried in his hand
[the boy did not say what had passed to induce him to take such a weapon],
and he had repeatedly insulted the master, which the boys could not stand.
B---- had in his own drawing-room told him (A----) that he had drawn his
sword against the master and thrown away the scabbard. B---- knew well that
if he came to the college he would catch it, and then he went off through a
side door--which was no sign of pluck; and then he brought Mrs. B---- with
him, thinking that her presence would protect him.

My readers may expect a word on Mr. Thom's sermons, after my account of his
queer doings about 666. He is evidently an honest and devout man, much
wanting in discrimination. He has a sermon about private _judgment_, in
which he halts between the logical and legal meanings of the word. He
loathes those who apply their private judgment to the word of God: here he
means those who decide what it _ought to be_. He seems in other places
aware that the theological phrase means taking right to determine what it
_is_. He uses his own private judgment very freely, and is strong in the
conclusion that others ought not to use theirs except as he tells them how;
he leaves all the rest of mankind free to think with him. In this he is not
original: his fame