ng at different periods set his face
in different directions--now to the east, now to the west, now pointing
to purposes of relaxation or liberality, now again to purposes of
coercive and popular restraint--he had notwithstanding been uniform, if
measured upon a higher scale. Transcending objects, coinciding neither
instantly with the first, nor except by accident with the last, but
indifferently aided by aristocratic forces or by democratic, shifting
weights which sometimes called for accessories of gravity, sometimes for
subtraction, mighty fluctuating wheels which sometimes needed flywheels
to moderate or harmonize, sometimes needed concurrent wheels to urge or
aggravate their impetus--these were the powers which he had found
himself summoned to calculate, to check, to support, the vast algebraic
equation of government; for this he had strengthened substantially by
apparent contrarieties of policy; and in a system of watch-work so
exquisite as to vary its fine balances eternally, eternally he had
consulted by redressing the errors emergent, by varying the poise in
order that he might _not_ vary the equipoise, by correcting
inequalities, or by forestalling extremes. That was a man of heroic
build, and of him it might be said at his death, 'Truly this man was a
son of Anak.' Now, of Mr. O'Connell a man might affirm something
similar; that as with regard to Edmund Burke it is altogether useless to
detect contradictions in form, seeing that he knows of this, that he
justifies this, glories in this, vehemently demands praise for this
contradiction, as all discord is harmony not understood, planned in the
letter and overruled in the spirit; so may O'Connell say, 'Gentlemen,
grubs, reptiles, vermin, trouble not yourselves to find out
contradictions or discords in my conduct; vex not your slender faculties
by arraying hosts of promises that defeat promises, or principles that
destroy principles--you shall not need to labour; I will make you a
present of three huge canisters laden and running over with the flattest
denials in one breath of that which I affirmed in another. But, like
Edmund Burke, I register my conduct by another table and by its final
result. On the dial which you see, the hands point thus and thus; but
upon a higher and transcendent dial these fingers do but precipitate or
retard one gigantic hand, pointing always and monotonously to the unity
of a perfect selfishness. The everlasting tacking in my course give