means"--words which long after he applied to himself: "You know that
I care nothing for power as power; I care for it only as a means to
compass the good of my country."

Cavour had the cast of mind which admires in others its own qualities.
As he revered Pitt's "vast and puissant intelligence," so he
sympathised with Peel's logic and courage. Peel was his favourite
among his contemporaries; he called him "the statesman who more
than any other had the instinct of the necessity of the moment." He
foretold Peel's abolition of the Corn Laws at a time when no one else
anticipated it. When he himself was charged by his old friends in the
Turin Chamber with desertion and treason, he reminded them that the
same charges had been made against Peel, but that he was largely
compensated by the knowledge that he had saved England from socialist
commotions, which in that country were in reality even more
threatening in their scope and extent than in the rest of agitated
Europe. He used to say that if Pitt had lived in times of peace he
would have been a reformer after the fashion of Peel and Canning,
adding his own venturesomeness to the largeness of views of the one
and the capable sound sense of the other.

These scattered judgments are drawn from the essays written by Cavour
in the years 1843-46. They appeared in Swiss or French reviews at a
period when it was easier to make a reputation by a magazine article
than it is now. Cavour's monographs attracted attention by the
writer's display of independent thought and firsthand information. The
most interesting now is that on "the condition and future of Ireland,"
which has been often referred to in the British Parliament. Most of
the suggestions made in it have been long since carried into effect,
but it is not these that make the essay still worth reading: it is