‘And will thy end be such as hers, O’erpowered by earthly mail-clad powers, Condemned for cruel, magic art, Though awful, bold of heart? ‘Through thorn-clad Time’s unending waste With ardent step alone thou strayest, As Jewish scape-goats tracked the wild, Unholy, consecrate, defiled. ‘Use not thy truth in manner rude To rule for gain the multitude, Or thou wilt see that truth depart, To seek some holier heart; ‘Then thou wilt watch thy errors lorn, O’erspread by shame, o’erswept by scorn, In lonely want without hope’s smile, As Tyre her weed-clad Isle. ‘Like once thy chief, thou bear’st Christ’s name; Like him thou hast denied his shame, Bold, eager, skilful, confident, Oh, now like him repent!’ That has certainly no sign of the hand of the master in it, for the language is not moulded and vivified by the thought, but the thought itself is fine. And there is still better evidence than these lines would afford, of the fascination which the Roman Catholic Church had for Bagehot. A year or two later, in the letters on the _coup d’état_, to which I shall soon have to refer, there occurs the following passage. (He is trying to explain how the cleverness, the moral restlessness, and intellectual impatience of the French, all tend to unfit them for a genuine Parliamentary government):— ‘I do not know that I can exhibit the way these qualities of the French character operate on their opinions better than by telling you how the Roman Catholic Church deals with them. I have rather attended to it since I came here. It gives sermons almost an interest, their being in French, and to those curious in intellectual matters, it is worth observing. In other times, and even now in out-of-the-way Spain, I suppose it may be true that the Catholic Church has been opposed to inquiry and reasoning. But it is not so now and here. Loudly from the pens of a hundred writers, from the tongues of a thousand pulpits, in every note of thrilling scorn and exulting derision, she proclaims the contrary. Be she Christ’s workman or Antichrist’s, she knows her work too well. “Reason, reason, reason!” exclaims she to the philosophers of this world. “Put in practice what you teach if you would have others believe it. Be consistent. Do not prate to us of private judgment, when you are but yourselves repeating what you heard in the nursery, ill-mumbled remnants of a Catholic tradition. No; exemplify what you command; inquire and make search. Seek, and we warn you that ye will never find, yet do as ye will. Shut yourselves up in a room, make your mind a blank, go down (as you speak) into the depth of your consciousness, scrutinise the mental structure, inquire for the elements of