THE QDERIST. 263 



I do that to ask one question is no reply to another. What would the 

 Judge say to a witness, who instead of giving a plain answer to a point 

 blank question, should come out with a "Tu quoque" interrogation? He 

 would at once make out his '^mittimus" and commit him, unless indeed 

 he might think that he had saved him the trouble by committing himself. 



The whole gist of my argument was, that as the leading Conchologists, 

 and the leading Botanists, admit Guernsey and Jersey shells and plants as 

 British, so by parity of reasoning ought Guernsey and Jersey insects to be 

 admitted as British by Entomologists. The main question I asked was, why 

 it should not be so? Mr. Gray begins by saying that he does not know 

 what the opinions of the two former are on the subject. I will therefore 

 tell him — They are unanimous in the admission of Guernsey species as 

 British. 



But to proceed — My question as to whether the Shetland or the Chan- 

 nel Islands are farthest from Britain, he answers (qucere answers,) by asking 

 to what main-land are they respectively nearest? I will answer this, 

 though not, I conceive, called upon by fair argument to do so, that any 

 one with a map before him will of course see that Guernsey is nearer to 

 France than to England; but I refer him to my concluding argument. 



His question No. 4 should come in here, and is hereby answered at one 

 and the same time with the previous one. 



V. — "Why stop at the Channel Islands? Why not include Heligoland? 

 W^hy not Bermuda ov Jamaica?" Because they are not part of "Great 

 Britain or Ireland!" As well ask, "Why not include India and New 

 Zealand? Why not Australia and Canada?" Another lesson which we 

 have been taught at school is, that the sun never sets on the Queen's 

 dominions; so that if we were to carry out Mr. Gray's ratiocination, (not 

 that I mean to imply that his argument intended anything but a "reductio 

 ad absurdum,") the "penitus toto disjecti orbe Britanni," (I must reduce 

 the poetry into plain prose, and not mind the "disjecti membra poetae,) 

 must include in their local museums all the species that are shone upon 

 by the sun while the earth revolves on its axis. 



Question III. I do not understand. 



Question 11. may properly come in here, and to it I reply, (though 

 again under protest,) that Mr. Gray could hardly have adduced an argu- 

 ment more fatal to his own theory. For his quotation, so far from calling 

 Normandy or Aquitaine part of the Icingdom of "Great Britain and Ireland," 

 (the only kingdom for which I am contending,) expressly distinguishes the 

 Anglia and Hibernia from these provinces, ^sl^, His Majesty was Icing of 

 the former, and only duke (dux) of the latter, Mr. Gray, I am sure, will 

 be the last person to deny to Her Majesty her right as sovereign of Guernsey 

 as well as of England, and if so, the latter forms part of her "kingdom 



