...Webster's willingness to make terms with the abhorred evil of slavery, has lost little or none of its original force. It is a fearful thing, says Swinburne, paraphrasing the Scriptures in praise of Victor Hugo, for a malefactor to fall into the hands of an ever-living poet. And nowhere in the Chatiments of the French poet is there to be found a greater finality of condemnation than that with which W...