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 his 'incessant use of ingenious and unqualified principles,' combined with a 'scholastic' skill which enables him to prove that any two principles may be consistent. In an earlier article he had analysed with singular acuteness the character of Sir Robert Peel, to illustrate the thesis that a 'constitutional statesman is a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.' He has to represent public opinion—the opinion, that is, of the average man; and it will come naturally to such a man to be converted quite honestly and yet just at the right time; that is, just when other men of business are converted. Originality and Byronic force and fervour would make that impossible. Byron's mind was volcanic, and flung out thoughts which crystallised into indestructible forms like lava. Peel's was one in which opinions resembled the 'daily accumulating insensible deposits of a rich alluvial soil.'

Articles in this vein, full of brilliant flashes of insight, show Bagehot's peculiar power. It is quaint enough to observe the audacious, rapid theorist devoting his brightest insight to a serious 'encomium moriæ' and becoming paradoxical in praise of the commonplace. He was quite in earnest. He admired no one more than Sir G.