1829.] The Conversazione. 599 
would exact from us obedience to every act of the parliament, till we were 
stripped of all our legal and constitutional rights. If we are denied the 
power, by petition, to arrest the progress of a bill before it is a law, and 
if we are to be subjected to its authority when it is a law, at what point, 
I should like to know, is resistance to tyranny, or impatience of mis- 
government, to manifest itself? But we need not perplex ourselves 
with+these subtleties. Every nation that knows the value of freedom, 
knows the way to obtain it; and no nation has given so many 
and such signal proofs of this truth as England. The country feels 
itself disgraced and insulted ; disgraced, in the unparalleled baseness of 
its representatives, and its hereditary legislators ; insulted by the con- 
temptuous disregard of its voice, as conveyed through innumerable 
channels, to parliament and the throne. Jt will forget neither. 
Dr. S—r. It is neither possible, nor desirable, that it should be for- 
gotten. In many a fierce struggle hereafter, the sin of the present day 
will be the watch-word and rallying sign of the sound democracy of 
England. The whole herd of the Lyndhursts, the Lethbridges, &c., 
the rank and file in both houses, who have marched, and counter- 
marched, like well-disciplined divisions, at the word of command, may 
pass away, and rot in dishonourable graves ; but the mischief they have 
done in holding up to public scorn and derision the authority of parlia- 
ment as founded upon the dignity and purity of its proceedings, will 
remain, like a festering sore, till the last vestige of it is eradicated. It 
must be the wish of all honest hearts, that the remedy should be applied 
before the authors of the evil are remembered only by their legacy. It 
would cost them as little to protest, next year, that every Catholic ought 
to be broiled alive in Smithfield, as it did this year, that every Catholic 
ought to have whatever it was his pleasure to demand. Such pliant 
senators are adapted to any kind of work. 
Mr. D. The king himself, 
* 
* * * * 
Seconp Group. (A loud burst of laughter.) 
Mr. S. n. (Laughing, a gorge deployée, and at least half a minute 
after all the rest had done.) Ha! ha! ha! That is excellent! It is 
one of the happiest applications of a quotation I ever heard. It beats my 
story of the oculist all to nothing. 
Dr. U——uns. What is your story of the oculist ? ' I never heard it. 
Mr. S. n. Oh, yes, you have, I am sure. 
Dr. U——xns. Then I have forgotten it, soit will be as good as new. 
Let us have it. 
Mr. S. nm. You remember Sir William Adams, afterwards Sir Wil- 
liam Rawson, which name he took in consequence of some property 
he succeeded to by right of his wife, I believe. Poor fellow! He was 
one of the victims of the South American mining mania. He plunged 
deeply into speculation, and wrote pamphlets to prove that so much 
gold and silver must ultimately find its way into Europe from Mexico, 
that all the existing relations of value would be utterly destroyed. He 
believed what he wrote, though he failed to demonstrate what he 
believed. At one period, to my positive knowledge, he might have 
withdrawn himself from all his speculations with at least a hundred 
thousand pounds in his pocket ; but he fancied he had discovered the 
philosopher’s stone—dreamed of wealth beyond what he could count,— 
