as not insisted upon, in his
(the Cardinal's) case, by the Pope, and that, if his calumniator chose
to go to the Cardinal's library, he would see that it was cancelled
in his copy of the Pontifical. The Protestant accepted his challenge
and went to the said library. He was then shown the oath, and found the
clause in question, totidem verbis; not cancelled, however, but marked
off by a line in black ink drawn over it, and (as it seemed) very
recently.

"'Pamphlets were published on this curious circumstance on both sides;
the Roman Catholics contended that the mere fact of Wiseman's challenge
was a sufficient proof of his consciousness of rectitude.

"'On the whole, after half a year of perpetual agitation, both in and
out of Parliament, a measure was passed which was notoriously inadequate
to suppress the offence, and which was broken with impunity.

"'It is gratifying to add, that, notwithstanding the dangerous and
vehement excitement which so long inflamed the minds of the people,
no life was lost except on one occasion. The sufferer--contrary to
what might have been expected--was of the dominant party a policeman,
who was endeavoring to repress the party violence of some Irish
Catholics in the North of England.'"
____

"Now it need not be said," proceeded Harrington, "that these sentences
contain what is perfectly well known by you--for myself I say nothing--to
be the merest matter of fact, narrated in the simplest language, without
any art or embellishment. Would you like to hear how Dr. Dickkopf, of
New Zealand, or Kamtschatka, or Caffre-land, might treat such a document
eighteen hundred and fifty years hence, amidst that imperfect light which
we well know rests upon so many portions of the past, and which may, very
possibly, be felt in the future? I think it would not be difficult for
him to show that the 'Papal Aggression' was impossible."

"We will, at least, listen to you," said Robinson.

"Let us suppose, then, some learned Theban stumbling upon this brief
record of an obscure event, and, as usual, making (if only because he
had discovered what nobody in the world either knew or cared about)
a huge commentary upon it; concluding from the internal evidence, the
simplicity of the style, the absence of all imaginable motives for
misrepresentation, and some external corroborative fragments painfully
gleaned from the history of the period, that these sentences formed a
genuine, literal, historic account of