THREE:Wilkes entered the Tower in all the elation of spirits which the occasion of acting the political hero inspired. He was soon visited by the Dukes of Bolton and Grafton, and Lord Temple, who, as well as his own friends, his solicitor, and counsel, were refused admittance. His house was entered, and his papers were seized and examined by Wood, the Under-Secretary of State, and Carteret Webb, the Solicitor to the Treasury. On the 3rd of May Wilkes was conveyed to the Court of Common Pleas, before Sir Charles Pratt, where his case was stated by Mr. Serjeant Glynn, and then Wilkes himself made a speech of an hour long. On the 6th of May he was brought up to hear the joint opinion of the judges, which was that, though general warrants might not be strictly illegal, the arrest of Wilkes could not be maintained, on account of his privilege as a member of Parliament; that nothing short of treason felony, and an actual breach of the peace, could interfere with that privilege, and that a libel could not be termed a breach of the peace. The judgment of the Bench, therefore, was that Mr. Wilkes be discharged from his imprisonment.The time arrived when this last liberty was to be taken away. In the year 529, Justinian issued his famous decree prohibiting the public teaching of philosophy in Athens, and confiscating the endowments devoted to the maintenance of its professors. It is probable that this measure formed part of a comprehensive scheme for completing the extirpation of paganism throughout the empire. For some two centuries past, the triumph of Christianity had been secured by an unsparing exercise of the imperial authority, as the triumph of Catholicism over heresy was next to be secured with the aid of the Frankish sword. A few years afterwards, the principal representatives of the Neo-Platonic school, including the Damascius of whom we have already spoken, and Simplicius,361 the famous Aristotelian commentator, repaired to the court of Khosru Nuschirvan, the King of Persia, with the intention of settling in his country for the rest of their lives. They were soon heartily sick of their adopted home. Khosru was unquestionably an enlightened monarch, greatly interested in Hellenic culture, and sincerely desirous of diffusing it among his people. It is also certain that Agathias, our only authority on this subject, was violently prejudiced against him. But it may very well be, as stated by that historian530 that Khosru by no means came up to the exaggerated expectations formed of him by the exiled professors. He had been described to them as the ideal of a Platonic ruler, and, like inexperienced bookmen, they accepted the report in good faith. They found that he cared a great deal more for scientific questions about the cause of the tides and the modifications superinduced on plants and animals by transference to a new environment, than about the metaphysics of the One.531 Moreover, the immorality of Oriental society and the corruption of Oriental government were something for which they were totally unprepared. Better, they thought, to die at once, so that it were but on Roman soil, than to live on any conditions in such a country as Persia. Khosru was most unwilling to lose his guests, but on finding that they were determined to leave him, he permitted them to depart, and even made it a matter of express stipulation with the imperial government that they should be allowed to live in their old homes without suffering any molestation on account of their religious opinions.532
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams
