by no means impeccable. The tendency to
believe that crimes cease to be crimes when they have a political
object, and that a popular vote can absolve the worst crimes, is only
too common; there are few political misdeeds which wealth, rank, genius
or success will not induce large sections of English society to pardon,
and nations even in their best moments will not judge acts which are
greatly for their own advantage with the severity of judgment that they
would apply to similar acts of other nations. But when all this is
admitted, it still remains true that there is a large body of public
opinion in England which carries into all politics a sound moral sense
and which places a just and righteous policy higher than any mere party
interest. It is on the power and pressure of this opinion that the high
character of English government must ultimately depend.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] This sentence may appear obscure to English readers. The
explanation is, that by an ingenious arrangement, devised by Lord
Beaconsfield, the professors of the Jesuit College in Stephen's Green
are nearly all made Fellows of the Royal University, those of the Arts
Faculty receiving 400_l._ a year, and three Medical Fellows 150_l._
each. By this device the Catholic college has in reality a State
endowment to the amount of between 6,000_l._ and 7,000_l._ a year. This
fact considerably reduces the grievance.

[43] See e.g. the death-bed counsels of Henry IV. to his son:--

'Therefore, my Harry,
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of the former days.'
_Henry IV_. Part II. Act IV. Sc. 4.

[44] Lord Lanesborough _v._ Reilly.

[45] See Tocqueville's _Memoirs_ (English trans.), ii. 189, Letter to
the _Times_.

[46] See Maupas, _Memoires sur le Second Empire_, i. 511, 512. It is
said that, contrary to the orders of St.-Arnaud, the soldiers, instead
of immediately shooting all persons in the street who were found with
arms or constructing or defending a barricade, made many prisoners, and
it is not clear what became of them. Granier de Cassagnac, however,
altogether denies the executions on the Champ de Mars (ii. 433).

[47] Granier de Cassagnac, ii. 438.

[48] _L'Empire Liberal_, ii. 526.

[49] _Memoires d'Odilon Barrot_, iv. 59-61.

[50] _Memoires d'Odilon Barrot_, iv. 56, 57.

[51] See Lord Palmersto