ULTRA RADICALISM. 43 



himself by dint of seeming one of the people, as one of the potentates. 

 The royalty" of radicalism seemed embodied in his person. He was 

 proclaimed to the world as the little king of Birmingham ; as a kind 

 of ft Brummagem" Alfred the Great ! The Council of the Union 

 constituted his privy council the Union itself formed his parlia- 

 ment,, whose business it was to vote supplies; and his people were 

 the 200,000 necessary for his purposes at public meetings, to stand 

 bare-headed at his beck, and to affix their signatures to any petitions 

 that it might please his modesty to call upon them to sanction." 



Gentle readers ! True-hearted and consistent Radicals ! are you 

 not amazed at this bitter and unsparing abuse of the very champion 

 of reform ; but for whose resolute,, yet temperate and forbearing con- 

 duct ; but for whose high and well-established character amongst 

 the population of his crowded district ; but for whose unimpeachable 

 addiction, at least, to the cause of the masses, the imposing attitude 

 of the Birmingham Union would never have been assumed, nor its 

 salutary influence felt, by the cause of reform ! You are doubtless 

 anxious to know what can have excited in the organs of ultraism 

 such immoderate rage and hostility against the late god of their idol- 

 atry, and the acknowledged main instrument of our political regene- 

 ration ! Shall we venture to disclose the awful secret ? Are your 

 nerves strong enough to bear it all at once? We are positively 

 heaving with the throes of approaching delivery ! " Parturiunt 

 monies nascetur ridiculus mus." Mr. Attwood had ventured to speak 

 reproachfully, but very temperately, and without the least abuse, of 

 the inefficacious support of the Cockney workies to the Reform Bill. 

 He had used the following words : " Here are a million and a half 

 of people who have done nothing, and yet they presume to send a 

 deputation to teach us how to form Unions. The working men have 

 neither wealth nor leisure to work in the cause we have both. If 

 they succeed, they will be certain to break up the political power in 

 this town, and certain not to gain the liberty of the press (that is, its 

 freedom from taxation). The old Radicals have been at work forty 

 years, and have gained nothing." 



This specimen of consideration towards the man whose manly and 

 temperate Unionists soon managed what the Cockney workies had no 

 notion of, till they were shown it by him and his friends, is, we 

 think, a complete index to the instincts and qualities of Ultra 

 Radicalism. 



Tristius baud illis monstrum, nee ssevior ulla 

 Pestis et ira deum Stygiis sese extulit undis. . 



In conclusion, we offer a few words to explain our preference of 

 the Liberal Whigs, the Menders and Restorers, in'present occupation 

 of the helm, to our own Altering and Improving Party, the Radi- 

 cals : 



The late break-up, and reduction of our political elements to a 

 temporary chaos, necessarily brought many heterogeneous characters 

 into conjunction. The immediate objects of Liberals, Whigs, Radi- 

 cals, and Ultra Radicals, were identical ; and not only admitted of, 

 but positively required a close and fraternal union. During this 



