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did say to Mrs Knox, ' No personal violence shall be used; ho should not have come among us. Had he stuck to peace, we should all have admired him.' Another, nodding his terrific plumes, exclaimed, ' It is well his
wife and children are with him, or else------' here he used
a fine aposiopesis. A student in rhetoric might indeed, on this occasion, have learned the use of many choice figures of speech; but he may succeed equally well in the ancient and celebrated school of Billingsgate. Mrs Knox, who was really anxious for my safety, not having perhaps remarked that barking dogs do not always bite, tried all her eloquence in expostulation, and in supplicating by the silent language of tears for clemency. But she was hurried along, and her gown and other parts of her dress accidentally torn in pieces. She has preserved them as trophies in their lacerated state. Thus the only personal violence (which the Knight of the terrible tongue called for) was exercised on a defenceless female, weeping for her husband, and intreating to be permitted to return and conduct her daughter in safety, who had been forced in the crowd from the protection of both father and mother. Temporary rage got the better, not only of military politeness, and the unmeaning forms of decorum, but of common humanity.*
" My son, who was also separated from us in the Lobby, informed me that he ventured to say loudly, in an honest zeal for his father, ' "What are you doing ? is this fair ? so many against one ! Fie upon you !—near twenty against one : 0 for shame !' Upon this a tall officer, whether the same who assaulted his mother or not, he does not know, shook him violently, saying at the same time, ' Who arc you, you dog ? you ought to be hanged as well as your father, if it is your father; and all such as hold his democratical principles, you dog you!'
* VlClT AJ1UK FATlUf, LAUDUMQUE U1MESSA ClU'IDO.—VlBU. |
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