[Footnote:
"_Only now forthcoming_":--In 1847 _began_ the publication (from
official records) of Joanna's trial. It was interrupted, I fear,
by the convulsions of 1848; and whether even yet finished I do not
know.] But _my_ purpose is narrower. There have been great thinkers,
disdaining the careless judgments of contemporaries, who have
thrown themselves boldly on the judgment of a far posterity, that
should have had time to review, to ponder, to compare. There have been
great actors on the stage of tragic humanity that might, with the same
depth of confidence, have appealed from the levity of compatriot
friends--too heartless for the sublime interest of their story, and too
impatient for the labour of sifting its perplexities--to the
magnanimity and justice of enemies. To this class belongs the Maid of
Arc. The ancient Romans were too faithful to the ideal of grandeur in
themselves not to relent, after a generation or two, before the
grandeur of Hannibal. Mithridates, a more doubtful person, yet, merely
for the magic perseverance of his indomitable malice, won from the same
Romans the only real honour that ever he received on earth. And we
English have ever shown the same homage to stubborn enmity. To work
unflinchingly for the ruin of England; to say through life, by word and
by deed, _Delenda est Anglia Victrix_!--that one purpose of malice,
faithfully pursued, has quartered some people upon our national funds
of homage as by a perpetual annuity.
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