with hollow phrases. He was tongue-tied by pride. The words conscience
and dignity are but words, after all. One must penetrate to the depths.
These depths Lord Clancharlie had not reached. His "eye was single," and
before committing an act he wished to observe it so closely as to be
able to judge it by more senses than one. Hence arose absurd disgust to
the facts examined. No man can be a statesman who gives way to such
overstrained delicacy. Excess of conscientiousness degenerates into
infirmity. Scruple is one-handed when a sceptre is to be seized, and a
eunuch when fortune is to be wedded. Distrust scruples; they drag you
too far. Unreasonable fidelity is like a ladder leading into a
cavern--one step down, another, then another, and there you are in the
dark. The clever reascend; fools remain in it. Conscience must not be
allowed to practise such austerity. If it be, it will fall until, from
transition to transition, it at length reaches the deep gloom of
political prudery. Then one is lost. Thus it was with Lord Clancharlie.

Principles terminate in a precipice.

He was walking, his hands behind him, along the shores of the Lake of
Geneva. A fine way of getting on!

In London they sometimes spoke of the exile. He was accused before the
tribunal of public opinion. They pleaded for and against him. The cause
having been heard, he was acquitted on the ground of stupidity.

Many zealous friends of the former republic had given their adherence to
the Stuarts. For this they deserve praise. They naturally calumniated
him a little. The obstinate are repulsive to the compliant. Men of
sense, in favour and good places at Court, weary of his disagreeable
attitude, took pleasure in saying, "_If he has not rallied to the
throne, it is because he has not been sufficiently paid_," _etc_. "_He
wanted the chancellorship which the king has given to Hyde_." One of his
old friends went so far as to whisper, "_He told me so himself_." Remote
as was the solitude of Linnaeus Clancharlie, something of this talk
would reach him through the outlaws he met, such as old regicides like
Andrew Broughton, who lived at Lausanne. Clancharlie confined himself to
an imperceptible shrug of the shoulders, a sign of profound
deterioration. On one occasion he added to the shrug these few words,
murmured in a low voice, "I pity those who believe such things."

IV.

Charles II., good man! despised him. The happiness of England under
Charle