 in mind of a certain learned and ingenious gentleman, who
undertook to disprove the existence of natural evil, and asked no other datum on
which to found his demonstration, but an acknowledgment that every thing that
is, is right. »You may therefore (said he, in a peremptory tone) spare yourself
the trouble of torturing your invention; for, after all, I am pretty certain
that I shall want capacity to comprehend the discussion of your lemma, and
consequently be obliged to refuse my assent to your deduction.«
    Mr. Jolter was disconcerted at this declaration, and so much offended at
Peregrine's disrespect, that he could not help expressing his displeasure, by
telling him flatly, that he was too violent and headstrong to be reclaimed by
reason and gentle means; that he (the tutor) must be obliged in the discharge of
his duty and conscience, to inform the commodore of his nephew's imprudence;
that if the laws of this realm were effectual, they would take cognizance of the
gipsy who had led him astray; and observed, by way of contrast, that if such a
preposterous intrigue had happened in France, she would have been clapt up in a
convent two years ago.
    Our lover's eyes kindled with indignation, when he heard his mistress
treated with such irreverence; he could scarce refrain from inflicting manual
chastisement on the blasphemer, whom he reproached in his wrath as an arrogant
pedant, without either delicacy or sense, and cautioned him against using any
such impertinent freedoms with his affairs for the future, on pain of incurring
more severe effects of his resentment.
    Mr. Jolter, who entertained very high notions of that veneration to which he
thought himself intitled by his character and qualifications, had not bore
without repining, his want of influence and authority over his pupil, against
whom he cherished a particular grudge, ever since the adventure of the painted
eye; and therefore, on this occasion, his politic forbearance had been overcome
by the accumulated motives of his disgust. Indeed he would have resigned his
charge with disdain, had not he been encouraged to persevere, by the hopes of a
good living which Trunnion had in his gift, or known how to dispose of himself
for the present to better advantage.
 

                                 Chapter XXVIII

He receives a Letter from his Aunt, breaks with the Commodore, and disobliges
the Lieutenant, who, nevertheless, undertakes his Cause
 
Mean while he quitted the youth in high dudgeon, and that same evening
dispatched a letter for Mrs. Trunnion, which was dictated by the first
transports of his passion, and of course replete with severe animadversions
