211 ' Domestic Pulilics: QSept. 



pauperism, more hopeless than ever ; the circulation, more a problem; the 

 very subsistence of the country endangered at this hour, by a long succes- 

 sion of vulgar tamperings with the natural laws of public provision; — 

 and yet which of those mighty emergencies lias had the power to awake 

 the shimbering genius of the Duke of Welhngton ? The whole evidence 

 of his Downing-street existence is to be found in the appointment of two 

 itinerant committees, at 10,000/. a-year each, to make reports, which 

 ai'e to buried with their own parchment in the Treasury cellars — the 

 reward of a baiTister's anonymous laboiu's, by the dignified sinecure of 

 writer to a list of bankrupts — and the fooleries of aspirants after red and 

 blue ribbons. 



So much for the foreign and domestic administration of this man, 

 whose presence is so essential to England ! He could not have done 

 less had he been fox-hunting every day of his life at Strathfieldsay. 

 But the one question which he has carried decides the claim of a great 

 statesman against him altogether. If there be a distinguishing feature of 

 greatness, it is dignity of mind — an utter abhorrence of circuitous pro- 

 ceedings — a plain, straightforward, honest pursuit of honest objects. But 

 liow stands the honour of the premier here ? The most artificial slave 

 that ever stole his way through the most circuitous chaiuiel to a purpose 

 that shunned the day, was not more artificial. The most crooked and con- 

 temptible trickery ever practised to keep a nation in confiding ignorance, 

 Avas his for years. Who does not remember the note to Dr. Curtis? — 

 that note in which the premier declared, under his hand, that he saw no 

 prospect or possihilili/ of carrying the measiure ! — of which at that very 

 hour he had arranged the whole machinery — with the bill engrossed on 

 his desk — with his miserable creatures. Peel and Tindal, covered with 

 its ink — and the whole posse of the Goverimient retainers ready drilled 

 for its escort into the presence of the astonished nation ! Are we to 

 forget the note to the Duke of Leinster, the consummate hypocrisy of 

 its insolence, the shuffling artifice of its contempt ? 



" ]My Lord Duke. I have received your letter, also a tin case, con- 

 taining a set of resolutions on what certain Protestants call Catholic 

 Emancipation." 



At the moment of writing that letter, the measure thus studiously 

 scorned in his Grace's correspondence, was regularly resolved on in his 

 Grace's Cabinet! And this is the great Statesman-! Bitterest of all 

 sarcasms ! burlesque praise. — prostituted nanie ! For what man ever de- 

 served the name, who stooped to such miserable artifice ? He may be 

 a cunning man ; he may be a dextrous impostor ; he may, by an affec- 

 tation of extraordinary candour in the midst of the most beggarly 

 intrigue, hoodwink men of integrity, who look for fair dealing where 

 they meet with fair words. But the triumph is too short, to be coveted 

 oven by a vigorous charlatan. The discovery is too sure, to be, even 

 on the calculation of an intriguer of any real scope of mind, worth the 

 disguise ; and the retribution is too solemn, perpetual, and universal, 

 not to shock the feelings of any man whose head or heart is yet accessi- 

 ble. Of all the characteristics of greatness, the most inseparable is an 

 abhorrence of shuffling, an instinctive sense of honour, a zeal of fairness, 

 manliness, and sincerity ; and this characteristic is not more dignified 

 than it is wise ; for what is bred in artifice, in artifice will perish. The 

 untempered mortar will break down the wall ; the dry rot will break 

 out in the building, let its architecture be what it may ; will proga- 

 gate itself through every joist and beam ; and before it can be pro- 

 nounced to have stood, will hurl the whole fabric in dust to the ground. 



