t
commotions, which in that country were in reality even more
threatening in their scope and extent than in the rest of agitated
Europe. He used to say that if Pitt had lived in times of peace he
would have been a reformer after the fashion of Peel and Canning,
adding his own venturesomeness to the largeness of views of the one
and the capable sound sense of the other.

These scattered judgments are drawn from the essays written by Cavour
in the years 1843-46. They appeared in Swiss or French reviews at a
period when it was easier to make a reputation by a magazine article
than it is now. Cavour's monographs attracted attention by the
writer's display of independent thought and firsthand information. The
most interesting now is that on "the condition and future of Ireland,"
which has been often referred to in the British Parliament. Most of
the suggestions made in it have been long since carried into effect,
but it is not these that make the essay still worth reading: it is
Cavour's mode of approaching the question. He writes as what has been
lately called an "Imperialist," though it was formerly thought enough
to say "Englishman." It is doubtful if any foreign publicist ever
wrote in the same spirit on the relations of England and Ireland
either before or since. It is only necessary to be familiar with the
continental press, from Legitimist to Socialist, to know, what he
knew himself, that Cavour was almost in a minority of one. He was not
acquainted with a single English politician; no one influenced him; he
judged the Irish question from the study of history past and present,
and having formed an unpopular opinion, he was prepared to stand by
it. He never held that politics are a game of chance; he believed that
they are subject to fixed laws of cause and effect, and he worked out
political problems by seeking and applying these laws to the case in
point without passion or prejudice. Having satisfied himself that the
union of Ireland and England was for the good of both, he was not
disposed to quarrel with the means by which it was accomplished. When
Pitt failed to carry the Bill for the Union through the Irish House of
Commons, he resorted to the expedient, "which had never failed in the
Dublin Parliament," of corruption on a large scale. He bought rotten
boroughs; he was prodigal of places, honours, pensions, and at the
end of a year he obtained a majority of 168 votes against 73. Was he
wrong? Cavour thought not,