Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.
Walter Savage Landor (1824). “Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen: Richard I and the Abbot of Boxley. The Lord Brooke and Sir Philip Sidney. King Henry IV and Sir Arnold Savage. Southey and Porson. Oliver Cromwel and Walter Noble. Aeschines and Phocion. Queen Elizabeth and Cecil. King James I and Isaac Casaubon. Marchese Pallavicini and Walter Landor. General Kleber and some French officers. Bonaparte and the president of the senate. Bishop Burnet and Humphrey Hardcastle. Peter Leopold and the President Du”, p.62
