His magnificent Defensio pro Populo Anglicano is one of the most masterly controversial works in literature.

Nothing positively controversial is taught; that is to say, no contemptuous expressions about the religion of any of the children are allowed, and the plainest truths of the Gospel specially set forward; but occasionally something comes into the lesson which shows to an intelligent learner the vanity of the superstitions around them."

The nearest approach to an English parallel to the Zola case would be furnished if it were proposed to put some savagely controversial and largely repulsive author among the ashes of the greatest English poets.

He followed with a simply brutal attack upon Pawkins, in the form of a paper upon the development of moths in general, a paper showing evidence of a most extraordinary amount of mental labour, and yet couched in a violently controversial tone.