this vast unpopularity as one of the most truly honourable
spectacles in our political history. The moral fortitude, like the
political wisdom of these two strong men, begins to stand out with
a splendour that already recalls the great historic heights of
statesmanship and patriotism. Even now our heart-felt admiration
and gratitude goes out to them as it goes out to Burke for his
lofty and manful protests against the war with America and the
oppression of Ireland, and to Charles Fox for his bold and
strenuous resistance to the war with the French Republic.

Before indulging in the dementia which those names usually produce, will
the reader please note that it is not my business now to defend either
the general principles of Cobden and Bright or the political spirit
which they are supposed to represent. Let them be as sordid, mean,
unworthy, pusillanimous as you like--and as the best of us then said
they were ("a mean, vain, mischievous clique" even so good a man as Tom
Hughes could call them). We called them cowards--because practically
alone they faced a country which had become a howling mob; we called
their opponents "courageous" because with the whole country behind them
they habitually poured contempt upon the under dog.

And we thus hated these men because they did their best to dissuade us
from undertaking a certain war. Very good; we have had our war; we
carried our point, we prevented the break-up of the Turkish Empire;
those men were completely beaten. And they are dead. Cannot we afford
to set aside those old passions and see how far in one particular at
least they may have been right?

We admit, of course, if we are honest--happily everyone admits--that
these despised men were right and those who abused them were wrong. The
verdict of fact is there. Says Lord Morley:--

When we look back upon the affairs of that time, we see that there
were two policies open. Lord Palmerston's was one, Cobden and
Bright's the other. If we are to compare Lord Palmerston's
statesmanship and insight in the Eastern Question with that of his
two great adversaries, it is hard, in the light of all that has
happened since, to resist the conclusion that Cobden and Mr. Bright
were right, and Lord Palmerston was disastrously wrong. It is easy
to plead extenuating circumstances for the egregious mistakes in
Lord Palmerston's policy about the Eastern Qu