"Such are the lineaments of the ethical character which the
cultivated intellect will form apart from religious principle."
Surely this is a wonderful utterance from a Cardinal of the Church of
Rome, full of urbanity and the wisdom of the world.
Your loving old
G.P.
[Footnote 1: Pp. 52-57.]
26
MY DEAR ANTONY,
I have in a former letter quoted a short but noble passage from Lord
Macaulay on the great Lord Chatham.
But I feel that the writer who was perhaps the greatest essayist that
England has ever produced must not in these letters be fobbed off with
so slight a notice and quotation.
What has always seemed to me the supremest passage that flowed
from his wonderful pen is to be found in his paper on Warren Hastings
which appeared originally in the _Edinburgh Review_.
His description in that essay of the opening of the great impeachment,
has given all succeeding generations a vision of one of the most
majestic scenes in the whole history of man.
"There have been spectacles more dazzling to the eye, more
gorgeous with jewellery and cloth of gold, more attractive to
grown-up children, than that which was then exhibited at
Westminster; but, perhaps, there never was a spectacle so well
calculated to strike a highly cultivated, a reflecting, an
imaginative mind.
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