The result of that contention is evident to-day only in a supremely dull book in which all the conflicting evidence is printed in page after page of portentous, though hazy, rhetoric. It is all very uninteresting, and the quantity of evidence so obscures the issues of the fight that he who, like the present historian, comes to a consideration of these things from the point of view of interesting the "general reader," may be very well excused for coming away from a survey of the fray with as little knowledge of it as old Kaspar, in the poem. You cannot know "all about the war and what they fought each other for" without delving very deep indeed into the mustiest by-ways of municipal history. The Jolliffe, the lord of the manor whose claims were thus resisted by the good folk of Petersfield, was, singularly enough, a descendant of that lover of liberty and paragon of latinity, William Jolliffe, Esq., M.P. for the borough, and a knight in 1734, who presented the leaden equestrian statue of William III., that now stands in the market square, in admiration of that "Vindicator of Liberty." [Sidenote: _HALF A HERO_] This statue, bowed and bent and painted white, was originally set up in that part of the town known as "the New Way." In those days it was richly gilt, and doubtless excited the awe and admiration of the travellers who passed through Petersfield; but to-day, the attitude of the King is undignified, and the airy garb of old Rome in which he is represented, not only adds nothing to our reverence, but outrages our sense of the fitness of things under these cloudy skies. The circumstances under which this statue was erected are recounted (in a manner dear to the heart of Dr. Johnson) in a Latin inscription of equal length and magniloquence, carved upon its stone pedestal. It veils with an impenetrable obscurity the identity of this classic horseman from nine of every ten people who behold him, and it runs thus:-- Illustrissimo Celsissimo Principi GULIELMO TERTIO Qui ob plurima quam maxuma Officia De his Gentibus optime meritus est Qui Rempublicam pene labefactam Fortiter sustentavit Qui purum et sincerum Dei cultum Tempestive conservavit Qui legibus vim suam Senatiq: auctoritatem Restituit et stabilavit Gulielmus Jolliffe Eques Ne aliquid qualecumque deesset Testimonium Quanto cum amore Studioq: tam ipsam Libertatem Quam egregium hunc Libertatis Vindicem Proseartus est Hanc Statuam Testamento suo dicavit * * * * * Et in hoc Municipio poni curavit { Samuele Tufnel Exts { Edvardo Northey { Johanne Jolliffe