owns its sisterly relationship to all that is left of the lead upon your
roof--this tight fit will weigh more with a jury than even if my lord
chief justice should jump into the witness-box, swearing that, with
judicial eyes, he saw the vagabond cutting the lead whilst he himself sat
at breakfast; or even than if the vagabond should protest before this
honorable court that he _did_ cut the lead, in order that he (the said
vagabond) might have hot rolls and coffee as well as my lord, the witness.
If Mr. Taylor's body of evidence does _not_ hold water, then is there no
evidence extant upon any question, judicial or not judicial, that _will_.

But I blame Mr. Taylor heavily for throwing away the whole argument
applicable to B and C; not as any debt that rested particularly upon
_him_ to public justice; but as a debt to the integrity of his own
book. That book is now a fragment; admirable as regards A; but (by
omitting B and C) not sweeping the whole area of the problem. There yet
remains, therefore, the dissatisfaction which is always likely to arise--
not from the smallest _allegatio falsi_, but from the large _suppressio
veri_. B, which, on any other solution than the one I have proposed, is
perfectly unintelligible, now becomes plain enough. To imagine a heavy,
coarse, hard-working government, seriously affected by such a bauble as
_they_ would consider performances on the tight rope of style, is mere
midsummer madness. 'Hold your absurd tongue,' would any of the ministers
have said to a friend descanting on Junius as a powerful artist of style--
'do you dream, dotard, that this baby's rattle is the thing that keeps us
from sleeping? Our eyes are fixed on something else: that fellow, whoever
he is, knows what he ought _not_ to know; he has had his hand in some of
our pockets: he's a good locksmith, is that Junius; and before he reaches
Tyburn, who knows what amount of mischief he may do to self and partners?'
The rumor that ministers were themselves alarmed (which was the naked
truth) travelled downwards; but the _why_ did not travel; and the