50. 



the spirit of revenge, as well as that of patience, benevolence, 

 or industry. It would be easy to show from history, that in 

 Spain, Germany, Poland, and other countries of Europe, the 

 Jews have submitted to the unparalleled cruelties and indig- 

 nities of others, as a matter of stern necessity ; but with a full, 

 keen, and bitter sense of their wrongs, which the lapse of seve- 

 ral centuries has scarcely served to efface. In a large pro- 

 portion of instances, they show their relation to the eastern 

 clime by their warmth of temperament ; and it is allowable to 

 suppose, that among their members may always have been 

 found the ordinary per centages of irreligion, immorality, and 

 want of principle. Hence the possibility becomes a proba- 

 bility, and the probability a moral certainty, that a few Chris- 

 tians have perished by the hands of Jews, from sectarian 

 hate, as hundreds and thousands of them have perished by 

 Gentile hands from the same cause. 



But turning from general facts and presumptions to the. 

 evidence before us, we find that, circumstantial as the account 

 of Matthew Paris is, it bears nothing of a judicial character 

 about it. It is not the report of a case in any of our courts, 

 the evidence of witnesses duly sworn is not given; but a 

 popular rumour is recorded in a popular manner, by the 

 chronicler of the time. He had heard it recorded with confi- 

 dence, by some one who had heard it from an equally credible 

 witness, and this one in turn was indebted to his informant, 

 who perhaps lived near Lincoln, and had spoken with some 

 of the citizens, whose families had formed part of the crowd 

 assembled on the occasion of the murder. This supposition 

 places the historian in a position unusually favourable for 

 ascertaining the truth ; and yet, in a matter which agitated 

 the popular feeHng so much, the probabilities* of the story 



* Suppose the story to have passed from mouth to month through a series of five 

 witnesses, and let the credibility of each be represented by £ ; or, in other words, 

 allow i for wilful exaggeration and accidental departure from truth. Then the 

 mathematical probability of truth at the close is represented by (£) s or the fraction 



