hands I have seen many books which go to the very root of morality,-gross and disgusting in their language, teeming with profligate adventures,-full of the most demoralizing descriptions; the names of which I should blush were I to utter? Be patient does it become you, I say, who hand about one to another openly these licentious publications, thinking it most honourable to possess them, and treasuring them up as the immediate jewels of your souls, thus loudly to express your abhorrence of a work written by Paine? Be consistent; but if you cannot be that, at all events, be tolerant. "My friends, you remind me indeed of the countryman recorded in history, who voted for the Ostracism of Aristides, because he was tired of hearing him eternally called 'the best.' I believe that you have little else, in reality, to urge against Leicester; and I am certain that there is not one in the school who exceeds him in generosity of sentiment, or who is more devoted to the interests of his school-fellows. You have frequently seen me engaged upon the perusal of books very much of a nature similar to that on which you have just now pronounced summary judgment, and yet I am happy in feeling that I have not fallen from your esteem. Let it not then be said that we as boys, emulating the tyranny of popery, have introduced an index expurgatorius, and banished intellectual liberty at one fell swoop from the precincts of the school." There was a good deal of sound sense and some capital home-truths in this address, which must have had considerable effect upon every unprejudiced mind; but unfortunately Everard Sinclair had more courage than policy; he had no idea of truckling to the vices of those who were themselves so monstrously intolerant. If he had paused about mid-way in his harangue, and contented himself with appealing to the generosity, instead of reviling the inconsistency, of his hearers, it is more than probable that he would have succeeded in allaying the irritation of the assembly. But nothing is more disagreeable than truth, when it is dressed in a criminating guise; so Everard utterly failed. The allusion to the books ruined him. When Everard ceased to speak, for a few moments there was a dead silence. For my part, I wondered that the rioters listened to him with such exemplary patience. But now their forbearance was at an end; the popular excitement burst out again, and raged with renewed vigour. One boy looked into the face of another, and dissatisfaction was legibly written there. A murmur of disapprobation broke forth. Brown was the first to speak. "And that does not mend the matter," said he; "your being an atheist does not make Delaval and Leicester a bit the more virtuous; it only makes you the more depraved. Why, d-n it, you are all atheists together. A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind;"" and he chuckled at the wit of his quotation. "By the Lord!" exclaimed Evans, infuriated to such a degree that he absolutely foamed at the mouth, "the impertinence of the fellow is insufferable; he compares us to the countryman in Plutarch; by Jove, sir, I wont be compared!" and he moved towards the fire in his wrath, and threw the Age of Reason' behind it. But the eye of Everard Sinclair was fixed upon every motion of his turbulent adversary. He sprang forward, quick as thought, and snatched the devoted book from the flames. Then, holding it firmly in one hand, he stood with his back towards the fire, and proceeded to remonstrate with his opponent, in language at once firm and expostulatory. Everard's extreme calmness disconcerted his furious enemy. Evans was astounded, paralyzed; he stood still and looked quite bewildered. He did not know what it behoved him to do. Presently, however, he recovered himself, and exclaimed in a fierce voice, -- "The insolence of the creature astonishes me.By Jove! it is past endurance,-I cannot stand this; and I will not. Take that, sir, for your pains." And clenching a fist of no ordinary dimensions, he struck Everard, with all his force, upon the chest. But Sinclair was neither astonished nor disturbed by this movement upon the part of his adversary. He looked with a tranquil aspect upon Evans's truculent countenance, and cried out, with admirable promptitude, in the high words of the ancient warrior, "Strike, but hear!" "I will strike, sir; but I will not hear," said Evans, who had by this time lost all control over himself, and was quite livid with rage, "I will not hear," and he struck Everard a second time. Up to this point, I had contented myself with remaining a spectator of the affray; it is true, that I had been observed to divest myself of my jacket, and to draw up my shirt sleeves, as though I had been preparing for action of some kind or other; but I had said nothing and done nothing as yet, I was making ready, that I might not be taken unawares. "Look at Claude Jerningham! look at Claude Jerningham!" cried a dozen voices at once; "by Jove, that was a facer!" It was indeed; I had made my way up to where Evans was standing, and struck him, with all the strength I could muster, just under the right eye. But I was no match for Evans. In a few moments I was floored! Now Everard Sinclair, who had hesitated to strike, not from fear, but upon principle, raised his fallen friend from the ground, and, crying out, "This is my quarrel, Jerningham !" he prepared, as I had done before him, " to do battle with this Roman." By this time Brown had stood up beside his athletic companion. All school-boys are fond of witnessing a fight, and there was now every prospect of a good one. A ring was formed; we were two to two, and pretty equally matched. We began: there was a prodigious outlay of pugnacity. Blows followed one upon another like hailstones in the month of November. In the midst of all this confusion Mr. Delaval stood amongst us. He looked more than usually dignified: his figure, which was naturally commanding, had assumed all its original erectness. There was a remarkable degree of energetic decision manifested in his whole comportment. He did not look fiercely upon us; he was stern, calm, and resolute. His appearance awed us into inactivity there he stood in the very midst of us, before we were aware of his approach: there he stood, as Coriolanus stood of old, Like an eagle in a dove-cot, |