Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/264

 234 ZEAL TOR AN CHAP, forestall the Government of the day. lu other - • countries the spectacle of a Government outdone in this way by private enterprise would have seemed a scandal ; out the Englishman liked the thought that he could buy and bring to his own home as much knowledge as was in the hands of a Minister of State, and he enjoyed the success of his fellow-countrymen in their rivalry with the Government. From this time the paper gathered strength. It became the foremost journal of the world ; and this was no sooner the case, than the mere fact of its being thus foremost gave a great acceleration to its rise ; fur, simply because it was recognised as the most public of prints, it became the clue with which anxious man went seeking in the maze of the busy world for the lost and the unknown, and all that was beyond his own reach. The prince who was claiming a kingdom, the servant who wanted a place, the mother who had lost her boy, they all went thither ; thither Folly ran hurrying, and was brought to a wholesome parley with Wisdom ; thither went righteous anger ; thither also went hatred and malice. And not in vain was all this concourse ; for either the troubled and angry men got the discipline of finding that the world would not listen to their cries, or else they gained a vent for their passions, and brought all their theories to a test by calling a whole nation — nay, by calling the civilised world — to hearken and be their witness. Over all this throng of appellants men unknown sat in judg- ment, and — v'ioleutly, perhaps, but never cor-