380 The King of the French, [OCT. 



the world never saw before, and which stands in the presence of Europe 

 the herald of the mightiest and most tremendous innovations ? While 

 kings are abdicating, constitutions breaking up, and England is met 

 by the spectacle round the horizon, of fierce change, of desperate 

 passions let loose, of the most fearful power on earth, the military power 

 of the populace, wielding the force of government, and making the 

 safety or the subversion of dynasties dependent on their will, and that 

 will dependent on the evil heart or the mad head, the reckless ambition 

 or the malignant spirit of the first demagogue who shall start up 

 among them, and say, " Come, I will lead you to plunder and mas- 

 sacre ?" 



And to protect us in this crisis of Europe, we have Lord Aberdeen, 

 a Scotch metaphysician, and anonymous critic of ballads and novels. For 

 our finance, which the newspapers describe as falling off by more than 

 a million a quarter, we have Mr. Goulburn ! and so forth of the rest. 

 But will the House of Commons listen to such men, or will the nation 

 suffer it to listen to such men? 



We must see the session begin with realizing, for the first time, what 

 kings' speeches have promised time out of mind, but what a patriotic 

 House of Commons alone will ever perform. We must have a reform, 

 ffrave, rational, and total j a reform not for party but for the nation ; not a 

 juggle of whigs and radicals, not for a Lord John Russell the more or less, 

 or any similar infinitessimal of the national understanding, in place ; not 

 for a young Apsley the more or less, or sucking politician, even of the 

 Wellesley line, fastened upon the people ; but an abolition of all the 

 practices that make the country look with jealousy on its ministers and 

 its representatives ; of all the election prostitutions and basenesses, the 

 bargainings and borough-mongerings that whole long list of offences 

 which Parliament itself so fiercely denounces on the eve of its dissolu- 

 tion, and so blandly forgets on the commencement of its next seven 

 years. 



We must have a purification of public offices, and must know the 

 reason why the nonentity of Lord Bathurst should be paid 13,000/. 

 a year out of the earnings of the people ? why the Duke of Wellington, 

 after receiving a national donation that would have purchased a German 

 principality nearly a million of pounds sterling cannot serve in office 

 for less than 14,000/. a year ! Why Lord Melville, in addition to his 

 enormous salary of 5,0001. a year, and a palace, and all kinds of allow- 

 ances at the Admiralty, must have a sinecure of 4,0001. besides ? Why 

 Lord Rosslyn, with his half- sinecure office of privy seal, should have a 

 whole sinecure of 3,000/. besides ? Why the burthen of all the salaries 

 of all the officers of state, of the household of the court, and of the whole 

 pomp and foolery attached to the court, should not be strictly examined? 

 Why the pension list, that old source of national disgust, should not be 

 overhauled ? We must know the reason why, when the land is over- 

 run with pauperism, and every honest man begins to think of flying from 

 the tax-gatherer to any part of the world where there is no field-marshal, 

 no first lord of the treasury, and no pension list; the Lady Aramintas and 

 .Isabellas, the daughters of noble lords and haughty countesses, shall be 

 flourishing about the world with our money in their pockets, or on their 

 coach pannels ? The inquiry into the list, too, might make deeper disco- 

 veries, and we might be instructed in the merits of ladies more renowned 

 for their friendships than for their other qualities. We should place 



