; but he argues that the aim being right, the means
employed were wrong, and could only result in failure.

The argument begins and ends in the proposition, in itself a truism but
which receives here a novel significance, that nothing in creation obeys
its like, and that he who would mount by the backs of his fellow men
must show some reason why they should lend them. In the olden time, we
are reminded, such reasons were supplied by physical force; later, force
was superseded by intelligence, _i.e._, wit or cunning; and this must
now be supplemented by something deeper, because it has become the
property of so many persons as to place no one person at an advantage.
Bubb Dodington's methods have been those of simple cunning, and
therefore they have not availed him. The multitude whom he cajoled have
seen through his cajoleries, and have resented in these both the attempt
to deceive them and the pretension--unfounded as it proved--to exalt
himself at their expense.

How then can the multitude be deceived into subservience?--By the
pretence of indifference to them. An impostor is always supposed to be
in earnest. The commonplace impostor is so: he has staked everything on
the appearance of being sincere. He, on the other hand, who is reckless
in mendacity, who cheats with a laughing eye; who, while silently
strenuous in a given cause, appears to take seriously neither it,
himself, nor those on whom both depend, irresistibly strikes the vulgar
as moved by something greater than himself or they. A "quack" he may be,
but like the spiritualistic quack, he invokes the belief in the
Supernatural, and perhaps shares it. He has the secret which Bubb
Dodington had not.

It may be wondered why Mr. Browning treats the shallower political
cunning as merely a foil to the deeper, instead of opposing to it
something better than both: but he finds the natural contrast to the
half-successful schemer in the wholly triumphant one: and the second
picture, like the first, has been drawn from life. It is that of the
late Lord Beaconsfield--as Mr. Browning sees him.

With FRANCIS FURINI is a defence of the study of the nude, based on the
life and work of this Florentine painter (born 1600), who at the age of
forty also became a priest. According to his biographer, Filippo
Baldinucci,[128] Furini was not only a skilful artist, but a
conscientious priest, and a good man. No reproach attached to him but
that he attained a special charm of col