Nature and Art. Mrs. Inchbald

the rest are massacred?”

      The dean answered, “The number who go to battle unwillingly, and by force, are few; and for the others, they have previously sold their lives to the state.”

      “For what?”

      “For soldiers’ and sailors’ pay.”

      “My father used to tell me, we must not take away our own lives; but he forgot to tell me we might sell them for others to take away.”

      “William,” said the dean to his son, his patience tired with his nephew’s persevering nonsense, “explain to your cousin the difference between a battle and a massacre.”

      “A massacre,” said William, rising from his seat, and fixing his eyes alternately upon his father, his mother, and the bishop (all of whom were present) for their approbation, rather than the person’s to whom his instructions were to be addressed—“a massacre,” said William, “is when human beings are slain, who have it not in their power to defend themselves.”

      “Dear cousin William,” said Henry, “that must ever be the case with every one who is killed.”

      After a short hesitation, William replied: “In massacres people are put to death for no crime, but merely because they are objects of suspicion.”

      “But in battle,” said Henry, “the persons put to death are not even suspected.”

      The bishop now condescended to end this disputation by saying emphatically,

      “Consider, young savage, that in battle neither the infant, the aged, the sick, nor infirm are involved, but only those in the full prime of health and vigour.”

      As this argument came from so great and reverend a man as the bishop, Henry was obliged, by a frown from his uncle, to submit, as one refuted; although he had an answer at the veriest tip of his tongue, which it was torture to him not to utter. What he wished to say must ever remain a secret. The church has its terrors as well as the law; and Henry was awed by the dean’s tremendous wig as much as Paternoster Row is awed by the Attorney-General.