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That he had a sincere love of art and nature seems to me quite

certain。  There is no essential incongruity between crime and

culture。  We cannot re…write the whole of history for the purpose

of gratifying our moral sense of what should be。



Of course; he is far too close to our own time for us to be able to

form any purely artistic judgment about him。  It is impossible not

to feel a strong prejudice against a man who might have poisoned

Lord Tennyson; or Mr。 Gladstone; or the Master of Balliol。  But had

the man worn a costume and spoken a language different from our

own; had he lived in imperial Rome; or at the time of the Italian

Renaissance; or in Spain in the seventeenth century; or in any land

or any century but this century and this land; we would be quite

able to arrive at a perfectly unprejudiced estimate of his position

and value。  I know that there are many historians; or at least

writers on historical subjects; who still think it necessary to

apply moral judgments to history; and who distribute their praise

or blame with the solemn complacency of a successful schoolmaster。

This; however; is a foolish habit; and merely shows that the moral

instinct can be brought to such a pitch of perfection that it will

make its appearance wherever it is not required。  Nobody with the

true historical sense ever dreams of blaming Nero; or scolding

Tiberius; or censuring Caesar Borgia。  These personages have become

like the puppets of a play。  They may fill us with terror; or

horror; or wonder; but they do not harm us。  They are not in

immediate relation to us。  We have nothing to fear from them。  They

have passed into the sphere of art and science; and neither art nor

science knows anything of moral approval or disapproval。  And so it

may be some day with Charles Lamb's friend。  At present I feel that

he is just a little too modern to be treated in that fine spirit of

disinterested curiosity to which we owe so many charming studies of

the great criminals of the Italian Renaissance from the pens of Mr。

John Addington Symonds; Miss A。 Mary F。 Robinson; Miss Vernon Lee;

and other distinguished writers。  However; Art has not forgotten

him。  He is the hero of Dickens's HUNTED DOWN; the Varney of

Bulwer's LUCRETIA; and it is gratifying to note that fiction has

paid some homage to one who was so powerful with 'pen; pencil and

poison。'  To be suggestive for fiction is to be of more importance

than a fact。

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