(2) Pitt and Fox were great rivals in the House. Burke was in France. The Revolution occurred in 1857, and these three men who were clever and had a lot of foresight banded themselves together so that they could be able to quell any signs of a rebellion in England. They all saw what a lot of mischief had been done in France, and thought it wise though differing in politics to be on the safe side.
(3) Pitt, Burke, and Fox were strongly opposed to the French Revolution, they foretold what would happen but the remainder of Parliament would heed their warnings. Pitt rose from his sick bed and ministered unto them but to no effect.
(Note: The reader will have some difficulty in awarding the prize among the last batch. Fox, the religious writer; Pitt, the ministering angel: these are two great conceptions.)
Now we come more clearly to another form of idiocy, the Happy Conjecture; which enables a candidate wholly ignorant of the matter in hand to evolve an answer of considerable length out of some familiar word in the question. Here is an illustration. In 1641 a Bill was introduced “for the utter abolition of Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, &c.,” and a forcible epigrammatist of that day called it the “Root and Branch Bill.” In 1901 an inquisitive examiner put in the History paper: “What was the Root and Branch Bill?” “Root?” said the candidates; “Branch?” said they: “it can do no harm ... here goes:”
(1) It was passed so that no one could cut down the trees or take the wood without the permission of the king.
(2) A bill dealing with the root of the matter, and certain branches relating to it.
(3) It was drawn up The Root to represent the whole of the crown money and the branch part of it the loans and money added to the crown money.
(4) A Bill that was made to shield the Presbyterians from the Protestant community.
(Note: In No. 4 which was the Root?)
In the same paper they were asked to explain the term “Villeins”; and in like manner they said to themselves “‘villains,’ archaic spelling, pedantic examiner” and they conjectured; one as an indignant Dissenter, another as a bigoted Churchman, a third as an undenominational idiot: