SOURCES or ARGUMENT. 



£43 



deeds. But if there be those who, while endeavouring to 

 undermine their betters' reputation, court notoriety, and 

 force tiiemselves on fame ; if any thrust slanderous 

 opinions on official personages — stir up pseudo-philan- 

 thropic societies — ivork upon pseudo-Christian meetings 

 — and, after years of approbation, of admiration, of fill- 

 sonieness, become suddenly philo-Serebas, philo-Sakarrana, 

 philo-Dyakf?, only because they would be miso-Brookes, — 

 these people will assuredly, like owis coming out in the 

 day-time, find ifome to hoot ihem ; some to remind them 

 tiiat it does disgust to see men glory in theu' shame. 



I will simply say, then, that I am of those who incline 

 to believe in the "extenuating circumslancej" aa the French 

 say, — poor at best — ^that Mr. Hume had not time to look 

 into this case and to "get up ^' this argument for himself. 

 We must not allow him to say that it "has occupied 

 much of his attention." I heiieve, then, that he at first 

 took up a case in which his, pei'haps honest, sympathies 

 were engaged by the falsehood and exaggeration of those 

 who wished to stir him up : that he must have trusted to 

 ihem for facts, and for proofs thereof ^ and that he was 

 not aware, until too latej of the argumentative frauds and 

 folUes wliich he was doomed to utter, Brooke and Eari 

 mis-quoted— four officers extemporised out of two (then 

 only to talk double nonsense) — a ticket-of-leavo 

 *' gentleman," from a Lahuan coal-mine^ with a letter 

 cooked up for him, lest he should not devise mi truths 

 enough — a "merchants'" memorial with scarcely a 



