text:  Did they weep over the perfidy of the partition of Poland? Do they really trust themselves to persuade a generous mind that the principle of mutual jealousy and mere selfishness the meagre inspiration of the so called balance of power in modern politics is according to any norm of nobility in action a more laudable motive for a public war than a holy zeal against those who were at once the enemies of Christ and (as future events but too clearly showed) the enemies of Europe? Modern wits sneer at the scholastic drivelling or the cloudy mistiness of the writers of the middle ages