Politics to him was not a pursuit, it was a passion. He loved it as an artist loves his art, for he found in it a complete satisfaction for his nature. All that was best, and all that was worst, in Wolsey sprang from this exceptional attitude towards statecraft, which he practised with enthusiasm, not in the spirit of cold calculation. The world is accustomed to statesmen who clothe the results of calculation in the language of enthusiasm; Wolsey's language was practical and direct, his passionate aspirations were restrained within his own bosom. Thus there is a largeness and distinction about Wolsey's aims, a far-reaching patriotism, and an admirable lucidity. He was indeed a political artist, who worked with a free hand and a certain touch. He was absorbed in his art as a painter over his picture, and he did not shrink as the full size of his canvas was gradually enrolled. He set himself to dominate Europe, and was fearless and self-contained. He gave himself entirely to his work, and in his eyes the nobility of his end justified any means. But he was sensitive, as all artists are, and could not work under cramped conditions. When he was restricted to the small matter of the divorce his hand lost its cunning. He was, though he knew it not, fitted to serve England, but not fitted to serve the English king. He had the aims of a national statesman, not of a royal servant. Wolsey's misfortune was that his lot was cast on days when the career of a statesman was not distinct from that of a royal servant. He owed his introduction to politics solely to royal favour, and neither had nor could obtain any other warrant for his position. For good or evil England was identified with her king, and it was long before it could be otherwise. Certainly Wolsey had no wish that it should be otherwise, and his subservience to the royal will seems to us to be unworthy of his greatness. But Wolsey associated his political life with the king's goodwill, and Henry was to him a symbol of all that was best and most intelligent in England. His deviations from his own policy in obedience to the king were not more degrading or more inevitable than are the calculations of the modern statesman about the exact limits of the field of practical politics. A statesman has not only to form projects, he has to secure a force behind him which will enable him to give them effect. Each age recognises this fact, and acts accordingly. There is nothing more intrinsically base in Wolsey's subservience to the royal will than in the efforts of modern statesmen to bid against one another for an opportunity of carrying out what they think to be the will of the people. No politician has a complete command of his field of action; his high-mindedness and purity must be tested by the degree of compromise which consciously or unconsciously he makes between his love of power and his knowledge or his conscience. The utmost that can be demanded of