CHARLES WATERTON 201 



He would have nothing to do with banks, keeping 

 his " solid tin " (the squire's colloquialisms are the 

 light to the doctor's umbrageousness) in a deal box. 

 Politics — 



*' If driven to extremities, I had rather be slain by the sword of 

 a Tory at noonday than be stabbed at midnight by the muck-fork 

 of a sinuous, tortuous, treacherous Whig. . . . Poor Britain ! 

 I pity thee from my heart. What •with Jew and what with 

 Gentile, thy Parliament House will soon want a Lord Protector 

 ■with his whitening brush. ' Sir Harry Vane.' The Lord deliver 

 me from Sir Harry Vane." 



Our " Spes Danaum " naturally refused to take Sir 

 Robert Peel's Oath — ^though, as he justly says : 

 " I don't believe that Sir Robert cared one fig's end 

 whether the soul of a Catholic went up after death 

 to the King of Brightness or descended to the king 

 of brimstone," his only aim being to secure " full 

 possession of the loaves and fishes." Still, he cannot 

 help casting a compassionate eye upon poor Britannia 

 with her mortgaged shield, spear and helmet, and 

 Cobbett advancing upon her armed with the keen and 

 gleaming weapons of his prose : — 



" A debt of £800,000,000 sterling (commenced by Dutch WilUam 

 of glorious memory) is evidently the real cause of her distressing 

 malady. It is a cancer so virulent, so fetid, so deeply rooted withal, 

 that neither Dr. Whig nor Dr. Tory, nor even the scientific hand 

 of Mr., Surgeon Radical, can give any permanent relief to the 

 suffering patient. So fine a personage reduced to such a state ! 

 Thank heavens, we Catholics have had no hand in thy misfortunes !" 



Against all the " mean-spirited and mercenary 

 recreants " who ill-treated animals he directed blows 

 of eloquence no less vehement than those of his 

 physical agility. Indeed, his darling sin of quotation 

 was apt to play more than usual havoc with pro- 

 portion when sacra indignatio was the stimulant. 

 When he heard of some linnets being blinded to make 

 them sing the sweeter he burst out in a fury : 

 " Monstrum horrendum, ingens, cui lumen ademptum ! " 



But from the " initiative inchoation " of Waterton's 



