All this is a tangle of sophisms. The assumption is, it is better to inflict a private wrong than a public one: we ought to wrong one rather than many. But even then, it is badly stated. The principle is true only where the tolerating of the private wrong is the only means of preventing a greater public wrong. But in this case it was the certainty of the wrong of one to avoid the chance of an inconvenience that might perchance be the occasion of wrong to many, and which inconvenience both easily might and should have been remedied by rightful measures, by mutual agreement between the Bishop and Chancellor, and by the King, or by an act of Parliament.
Ib.
s. 203.
'Truly, Sir, this is my dark lantern, and I am not ashamed to inquire of a Dalilah to resolve a riddle; for in my studies of divinity I have gleaned up this maxim, licet uti alieno peccato; — though the Devil make her a sinner, I may make good use of her sin.' Prince, merrily, 'Do you deal in such ware?' 'In good faith, Sir,' says the Keeper, 'I never saw her face.'
And Hacket's evident admiration, and not merely approbation, of this base Jesuitry, — this divinity which had taught the Archbishop
licere uti alieno peccato
! But Charles himself was a student of such divinity, and yet (as rogues of higher rank comfort the pride of their conscience by despising inferior knaves) I suspect that the 'merrily' was the Sardonic mirth of bitter contempt; only, however, because he disliked Williams, who was simply a man of his age, his baseness being for us, not for his contemporaries, or even for his own mind. But the worst of all is the Archbishop's heartless disingenuousness and moon-like nodes towards his kind old master the King. How much of truth was there in the Spaniard's information respecting the intrigues of the Prince and the Duke of Buckingham? If none, if they were mere slanders, if the Prince had acted the filial part toward his father and King, and the Duke the faithful part towards his master and only too fond and affectionate benefactor, what more was needed than to expose the falsehoods? But if Williams knew that there was too great a mixture of truth in the charges, what a cowardly ingrate to his old friend to have thus curried favor with the rising sun by this base jugglery!
Ib.
s. 209.
He was the topsail of the nobility, and in power and trust of offices far above all the nobility.