XIII.
CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
"There is heresy here, you perceive: for the right
Of privately judging means simply that light
Has been granted to me for deciding on you;
And in happier times, before atheism grew,
The deed contained clauses for cooking you too."
I HAVE been warned by kind friends who have been pleased to commend several of the foregoing sketches much beyond their deserts,—friends whose good opinion I highly value,—that, whatever I do, I must on no account allow "Bradlaugh" to appear in this series. To very many "Iconoclast" is still monstrum horrendum cui lumen ademptum. But my reply has invariably been. How are you to keep him out? The man is altogether too big to be passed over, if one is not to lose sight of every thing savoring of reasonable proportion. Besides, though due regard must be had to the "single life," it is of yet greater importance to consider the "type;" and a more marked type of Radicalism than that which is incarnated in Mr. Charles Bradlaugh does not exist. He is the grim captain of that section of English Radicals, far more powerful than is generally supposed, who boldly inscribe on their banner the watchwords. Atheism, Malthusianism, Republicanism. These formidable isms, which philoso-
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