

CAN THE TORIES TAKE OFFICE AFTER ALL ? 591 



grievous wrong of the third estate, for the convenience, or pleasure, 

 or profit, of the second. But, in the present instance, we are only, 

 as yet, permitted to see a summary and ungracious exercise of one 

 half of the prerogative ; and to feel that there is a very unintelligible 

 delay in putting in force the other. The Reform Ministry is dis- 

 missed of a sudden ; but where are the new Ministers ? Or are they 

 to be put forward as a Reform Ministry, requiring merely a short 

 time to turn their coats with becoming decency, so that they may 

 not rush into the presence of the people, one with the hind part of 

 his garment before, another with incongruous sleeves, a third with 

 the seams torn, and the like ? 



When his present Majesty ascended the throne, he recognized, by 

 the very choice of his ministers, the necessity of reform, and all 

 measures that must inevitably emanate from it thereunto tending. 

 We may safely assert, that he solemnly pledged himself to the people 

 that the principle of reform should be, and with his concurrence, 

 carried out to the fullest extent. It is idle to quibble about words 

 it is worse than idle to assume that this principle involves spoliation, 

 anarchy, bloodshed, and many other bad things. We take the word 

 in its true and plain sense. These results would not, nay, cannot 

 arise out of reform ; and we have yet to learn that the abuse of the 

 principle by any set of desperate men, or the abuse of the word by 

 any gang of desperate Tories, can for a moment affect the thing itself? 

 When we say that reform is good and corruption bad, we think we 

 need hardly take the trouble of proving either the one or the other j 

 but laughter is good logic when a man seriously proceeds to contend 

 that reform must inevitably breed confusion, and that corruption 

 must necessarily engender good government j in other words, that 

 virtue tends downwards, and that vice bends to the " skiey influ- 

 ences." You cannot pluck figs from thistles, or grapes from thorns ; 

 but if, as is their nature, some semi-quadrupeds prefer thistles to 

 figs, they are not worth a fig ; and if the grapes are sour, thorns 

 may, perhaps, serve them in good stead. 



This is the predicament of the Tories at the present moment. Let 

 them, for a short space, masticate their thistles, and luxuriate on a 

 bed of thorns; but let them not imagine that, by beat of drum, they 

 can enforce the people of England to yield up the fig of representa- 

 tion ; or that by firing a few canisters of grape shot they can destroy 



