at finding that all their suffering had led to no sure basis of
persecution of the other side.

Dunsford. I wonder, Ellesmere, what you would have done in
persecuting times. What escape would your sarcasm have found for
itself?

Milverton. Some orthodox way, I daresay. I do not think he would
have been particularly fond of martyrdom.

Ellesmere. No. I have no taste for making torches for truth, or
being one: I prefer humane darkness to such illumination. At the
same time one cannot tell lies; and if one had been questioned about
the incomprehensibilities which men in former days were so fierce
upon, one must have shown that one disagreed with all parties.

Dunsford. Do not say "one:" _I_ should not have disagreed with the
great Protestant leaders in the Reformation, for instance.

Ellesmere. Humph.

Milverton. If we get aground upon the Reformation, we shall never
push off again--else would I say something far from complimentary to
those Protestant proceedings which we may rather hope were
Tudoresque than Protestant.

Ellesmere. No, that is not fair. The Tudors were a coarse, fierce
race; but it will not do to lay the faults of their times upon them
only. Look at Elizabeth's ministers. They had about as much notion
of religious tolerance as they had of Professor Wheatstone's