pointed expression, no fatiguing brilliancy,' only 'a dull, creeping, satisfactory sensation that there was nothing to admire.' There was some good in the coup d'état, which at least suppressed the useless, endless, empty logic-chopping of smart Parisian theorisers.
Bagehot is seeking point at the expense of accuracy, and will not take the sting out of his paradoxes. His wiser readers may supply the qualifications for themselves. If the less wise are shocked, he will only smile in his sleeve. He had far too much intellect to accept the thoroughly cynical conclusions that since we can know nothing we may believe anything, and since philosophy is delusive give up the attempt to theorise at all. On the contrary, his weakness is a rather excessive tendency to theorise. It appears in the literary criticisms, at which I can here only glance as illustrations of his habitual mental attitude. They have, above all things, the essential merits of freshness and sincerity. If he has not the special knowledge, he is absolutely free from the pedantry, of the literary expert. He has none of the cant of criticism, and never bores us with 'romantic and classical' or 'objective and subjective.' When he wants a general theory—as he
