This is the mode in which Lord Palmerston's administration has been lately maintained; a Ministry in many ways defective, but more beneficially vigorous abroad, and more beneficially active at home, than the vast majority of English Ministries.
Bagehot assesses Lord Palmerston's administration as effective despite its flaws, emphasizing its vigor.
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More from Walter Bagehot
He could have found the truth as a statesman just as he found it when a judge; but he never did find it.
The progress of the military art is the most conspicuous, I was about to say the most SHOWY, fact in human history.
We have thus a whole group of ancient republics of non-Aryan race, and one which, being more ancient than the classical republics, could not have borrowed from or imitated them.
The whole history of civilisation, is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.
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