ther, therefore, we
must remain forever absolutely locked up as in a northern winter, or
we must break our way out by some mode already suggested by the
honorable and learned gentleman; and then he cries out, "Ah, I was
there before you! That is what I told you to do; but as you would not
do it then, you have no right to do it now."

In Queen Anne's reign there lived a very sage and able critic named
Dennis, who in his old age was the prey of a strange fancy that he had
himself written all the good things in all the good plays that were
acted. Every good passage he met with in any author he insisted was
his own. "It is none of his," Dennis would always say: "no, it's
mine!" He went one day to see a new tragedy. Nothing particularly good
to his taste occurred till a scene in which a great storm was
represented. As soon as he heard the thunder rolling over his head he
exclaimed, "That's my thunder!" So it is with the honorable and
learned gentleman: it's all his thunder. It will henceforth be
impossible to confer any boon, or make any innovation, but he will
claim it as his thunder.

But it is due to him to acknowledge that he does not claim everything;
he will be content with the exclusive merit of the liberal measures
relating to trade and commerce. Not desirous of violating his own
principles by claiming a monopoly of fore-sight and wisdom, he kindly
throws overboard to my honorable and learned friend [Sir J.
Mackintosh] near him, the praise of South America. I should like to
know whether, in some degree, this also is not his thunder. He thinks
it right itself; but lest we should be too proud if he approved our
conduct _in toto_, he thinks it wrong in point of time. I differ from
him essentially; for if I pique myself on anything in this affair, it
is the time. That at some time or other, States which had separated
themselves from the mother country should or should not be admitted to
the rank of independent nations, is a proposition to which no possible
dissent could be given. The whole question was one of time and mode.
There were two modes: one a reckless and headlong course by which we
might have reached our object at once, but at the expense of drawing
upon us consequences not lightly to be estimated; the other was more
strictly guarded in point of principle, so that while we pursued our
own interests, we took care to give no just cause of offense to other
Powers.

CESARE CANTU

(1805-1895)

Cesare