The definition of a farce is, an improbability or even
impossibility granted in the outset, see what odd and laughable events will
fairly follow from it!
_April _8. 1833.
STATESMEN.--BURKE.
I never was much subject to violent political humours or accesses of
feelings. When I was very young, I wrote and spoke very enthusiastically,
but it was always on subjects connected with some grand general principle,
the violation of which I thought I could point out. As to mere details of
administration, I honestly thought that ministers, and men in office, must,
of course, know much better than any private person could possibly do; and
it was not till I went to Malta, and had to correspond with official
characters myself, that I fully understood the extreme shallowness and
ignorance with which men of some note too were able, after a certain
fashion, to carry on the government of important departments of the empire.
I then quite assented to Oxenstiern's saying, _Nescis, mi fili, quam parva
sapientia regitur mundus_.
* * * * *
Burke was, indeed, a great man. No one ever read history so philosophically
as he seems to have done. Yet, until he could associate his general
principles with some sordid interest, panic of property, jacobinism, &c.
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