LIBEL OR NO LIBEL. SPANISH IMBECILITY. 42J

in the highest degree, must not be allowed an ascendancyover talents, and abilities, and sound judgment in thematters where such are required. No man ever thoughtof objecting to the music of Mozart or Haydn , because itwas composed by the greatest sensualists of their age.Private character ought not to be rigorously inquired into,when we have alone to do with public official acts. Buteven into private acts we have a right to look, if we areinterested in the honour and trust-worthiness of a publicfunctionary. A man who has committed a theft—an act oftreachery or baseness, is not to be screened by the cantingpretence, that he may have repented of his fault. If a manwho has committed a crime is to be put on a footing ofequality with those who have never gone astray, we weakenthe motives to perseverance in a course of unbending recti-tude ! Where is not honesty an essential qualification ?We must be acquainted with the past life of a man, in orderto know how far we may repose confidence in him at pre-sent and in future. But in the cases objected to by thecritic above mentioned, I have not said a single word aboutthe private acts or morality of the men I speak of—I haverecorded their public and official acts : let those speak forthemselves.

It will by and by be seen, in 1823, what dreadful social evilsflowed from the blind infatuation of the Spaniards, in trust-ing the most important commands to men who had overand over again given proof of their unfitness, except for thepurpose of betraying the trust confided to them. Up to thelast, we have seen the imbecile Spanish government of1837, giving the most momentous commands to such menas Alaix and Quesada, the one a red hot ultra-Bourbonite,ex-officer of the Royal guard of Charles X. ; the other, achief of the “ Army of the Faith,” who aided the French tooverthrow the Constitution in 1823 : which “ Constitution ”