THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 



OF 



POLITICS, LITERATURE, AND THE BELLES LETTRES. 



VOL, XIV.] JULY, 1832. [No. 79. 



THE TRIUMPH OF AGITATION. 



" That day, which our fathers wished to see, and did not see, is breaking upon 

 us." Bolingbroke. 



THE Reform Bill is the law of the land. Magna Charta and the Bill of 

 Rights shall be spoken of no more as the chief muniments of British 

 liberty. We have at length obtained a substantial security for our rights 5 

 at length, the blessings of good and cheap government are within our 

 reach. The days of mock representation are at an end. Boroughmongers 

 and Bishops shall rule and rob us no more. The means of national rege- 

 neration are in our hands ; nothing remains but to use them. We have 

 but to exert the power of which we are now possessed, and the Satan of 

 public profligacy will soon be beaten down under our feet. Well may 

 England exult at this glorious crisis of her fortunes ! The ascendancy of 

 factions and families is over ; democratic ascendancy begins. The majesty 

 of the people it was no hot enthusiast, no wild projector, it was Lord 

 Chatham who first used that expression has been mightily asserted. Well 

 may England exult ! The dark days of misrule are past : the light of 

 freedom is shining round her. 



The democratic principle had to encounter in the struggle an opposition, 

 the most obstinate, and flagrantly unprincipled, that ever, even within 

 the walls of a British Parliament, rose up against the interests of the coun- 

 try. Against it stood a desperate faction of peers, lay and spiritual, who, 

 at every step of the popular career, flung down their coronets and their 

 mitres, the whole weight of their fortunes and their stations, to impede it : 

 against it stood that haughty and flagitious oligarchy, with its long and 

 infamous train of tools and minions, which, for near two centuries, has 

 rioted on the plunder of this afflicted country ; who spoliated the people, 

 and called it government ; stifled their voice, and called it tranquillity ; 

 systematised wrong, and dared to call it the Constitution : a despotism 

 redeemed by no virtue, palliated by no ability 5 the most utterly igno- 

 rant, the most thoroughly selfish, the most incorrigibly vicious, that 

 ever imposed its iron and ignominious yoke upon any nation : a confede- 

 racy of all sordid interests and nefarious principles, under whose pestilent 



M.M. New Series. VOL. XIV. No. 79. B 2 



