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 surrender of right feeling. The story is told without disapprobation by Anthony Wood, who never exaggerated anything against the university of which he is writing eulogistic history.

In 1622, one William Knight put forward in a sermon preached before the University certain theses which, looking at the state of the times, may have been improper and possibly of seditious intent. One of them was that the bishop might excommunicate the civil magistrate: this proposition the clerical body could not approve, and designated it by the term erronea, the mildest going. But Knight also declared as follows—

Subditis mere privatis, si Tyrannus tanquam latro aut stuprator in ipsos faciat impetum, et ipsi nec potestatem ordinariam implorare, nec alia ratione effugere periculum possint, in presenti periculo se et suos contra tyrannum, sicut contra privatum grassatorem, defendere licet.

That is, a man may defend his purse or a woman her honour, against the personal attack of a king, as against that of a private person, if no other means of safety can be found. The Convocation sent Knight to prison, declared the proposition 'falsa, periculosa, et impia,' and enacted that all applicants for degrees should subscribe this censure, and make oath that they would neither hold, teach, nor defend Knight's opinions.

The thesis, in the form given, was unnecessary and improper. Though strong opinions of the king's rights were advanced at the time, yet no one ventured to say that, ministers and advisers apart, the king might personally break the law; and we know that the first and only attempt which his successor made brought on the crisis which cost him his throne and his head. But the declaration that the proposition was false far exceeds in all that is disreputable the decision of the Inquisition against the earth's motion. We do not mention this little matter in England. Knight was a Puritan, and Neal gives a short account of his sermon. From comparison with Wood, I judge that the theses, as given, were not Knight's words, but the digest which it was customary to make in criminal proceedings against opinion. This heightens the joke, for it appears that the qualifiers of the Convocation took pains to present their condemnation of Knight in the terms which would most unequivocally make their censure condemn themselves. This proceeding took place in the interval between the two proceedings against Galileo: it is left undetermined whether we must say pot-kettle-pot or kettle-pot-kettle.