home and the other abroad, according to the
exigencies of the case. You may lecture your country in one breath, and
defend her in the next, without being inconsistent.

Oh, England, England! what shall recompense us for our Lost Leader?
Great and Mighty One, from whose brow no hand but thine own could ever
have plucked the crown! Beautiful land, sacred with the ashes of our
sires, radiant with the victories of the past, brilliant with hopes for
the future,--

"O Love, I have loved you! O my soul,
I have lost you!"

Ah, if these two fatal years might be blotted out! If we could stand
once again where we stood on that October day when the young Prince,
whose gentle blood commanded our attention, and whose gentle ways won
our hearts, bore back to his mother-land and ours the benedictions of a
people! Upon that pale, that white-faced shore I shall one day look, but
woe is me for the bitter memories that will spring up for the love and
loyalty so ruthlessly rent away!

So I borrow your ears, my countrymen, and tell you why it is impossible
to defer to you as much as one would like. Partly, it is because you
talk so wide of the mark. It may not be practicable or desirable to say
much; but so much the more ought what you do say to be to the point. A
good carpenter needs not to vindicate his skill by hammering away hour
after hour on the same shingle; but while he does strike, he hits the
nail on the head. Moreover, you show by your remarks that you have
such--such--well, _stupid_ is what I mean, but I am afraid it would not
be polite to employ that word, so I merely give you the meaning, and
leave you to choose a word to your liking--ideas about the nature, the
facts, and the objects of writing. Look at it a moment. With your gray
goose-quill you sit, O Rhadamanthus, and to your waiting audience
pleasantly enough affirm that I have "taken Benlomond for my model." But
when I happen to remember that the larger part of my book was written
and printed not only before I had ever met Benlomond, but before he had
ever been heard of in this country at least, what faith can I have in
your sagacity? And when, remembering those remarkable coincidences
which sometimes surprise and baffle us, which in science make Adams and
Le Verrier discover the same planet at the same time without knowing
anything of each other's calculations, and which in any department seem
to indicate that a great tide sweeps over humanity, bearing us on