THE ELECTIONS. 117 



with the immortal glory of the soldier the more endearing character 

 of the reforming statesman. His individual weight would readily 

 have crushed the petty obstacles that artifice would have pre- 

 sented to the progress of integrity and reason. His great example 

 would have carried inspiration into every bosom warmed with just 

 and generous designs conviction into all capacities enlightened 

 by a liberal intelligence. The people would have marched in a 

 pacific triumph beneath the conduct of a hero to the temple of 

 their liberties. They would have been spared those galling conflicts 

 with their rulers which have generated a perverse hostility between 

 the higher orders and the poorer classes of the country. The re- 

 formers of church and state would have assumed a gracious and en- 

 dearing aspect ; they would have been carried as the boons of peace,, 

 the offsprings of victorious glory, as the work of politic justice, arid 

 have strengthened all the bonds and cheered the universal classes of 

 the social union. It is needless to depict the converse of this pleasing 

 fancy. A persistence in the errors of a selfish and repulsive school 

 has placed his Grace among a party designated by the national mis- 

 trust ; among the champions of venality, proscription, and abuse. 

 The rights of the community are wrested, one by one, from the ra- 

 pacious grasp of its oppressors, and if the people triumph in the 

 cause of justice, it will be attributable to its patience only that the 

 victory has not been signalized by bloodshed and convulsion. 



The differences of the Whigs, by weakening the power which their 

 union would have irresistibly opposed to the existence of the present 

 government, may possibly inspire Sir Robert Peel and his associates 

 with the hope of counteracting the decisive spirit of the country. The 

 conversion of the ministers to principles of which they formerly w r ere 

 the avowed opponents, must separate from them the more consistent 

 members of their former party. In the latter instance, the loss of 

 spirited support will be but ill-requited by the desultory votes on 

 which the ministry affect to reckon from such members of the Whigs 

 as may consider it impartial to accord them at the close of a poli- 

 tical existence their confidence in the professions of a novel and an 

 uncongenial creed. They have the corporations and the church to 

 deal with, and either subject must be treated in a spirit of enlarged 

 and energetic reformation. Will such a reformation be supported by 

 the suffrage of the Tories ? Will reformation of a more contracted 



