His mode of procedure recalls inevitably an exquisite story which is to be found somewhere in Rousseau.

During country walks, Jean Jacques tells us, his father would suddenly say: "My son, we will speak of your dear, dead mother." And Jean Jacques was expected to reply: "Wait, then, a moment, my dear father.

I will first search for my handkerchief, for I perceive that we are going to weep." In precisely such a mood of deliberate melancholy does the sentimentalist address himself to the Confiscations and the Penal Laws.
He is ready to praise without stint any Irish leader who happens to be sufficiently dead.

He is ready to confess that all his own British forerunners were abominable blackguards.

He admits, not only with candour but even with a certain enthusiastic remorse, that England oppressed Ireland in every phase of their relations.