ng? Will it not provoke--is it not now provoking--a
re-action still more peremptory against the claims of Toryism, than the
state of things which preceded it? Is it anything but a flash of
success, still more indicative of expiring life, and caused only by its
convulsive efforts?

If it be, this it is easy enough to predict, that Sir Robert Peel,
notwithstanding his abilities, and the better ambition which is natural
to them, and which struggles in him with an inferior one, impatient of
his origin, will turn out to be nothing but a servant of the
aristocracy, and (more or less openly) of a barrack-master. He will be
the servant, not of the King, not of the House of Commons, but of the
House of Lords, and (as long as such influence lasts, which can be but
a short while), of its military leader. He will do nothing whatsoever
contrary to their dictation, upon peril of being treated worse than
Canning; and all the reform which he is permitted to bring about will be
only just as much as will serve to keep off the spirit of it as long as
possible, and to continue the people in that state of comparative
ignorance, which is the only safeguard of monopoly. Every unwilling step
of reform will be accompanied with some retrograde or bye effort in
favour of the abuses reformed: cunning occasion will be seized to
convert boons, demanded by the age, into gifts of party favour, and
bribes for the toleration of what is withheld; and as knowledge proceeds
to extort public education (for extort it it will, and in its own way
too at last), mark, and see what attempts will be made to turn knowledge
against itself, and to catechise the nation back into the schoolboy
acquiescence of the good people of Germany. Much good is there in that
people--I would not be thought to undervalue it--much _bonhommie_--and
in the most despotic districts, as much sensual comfort as can make any
people happy who know no other happiness. But England and France, the
leaders of Europe, the peregrinators of the world, cannot be confined to
those lazy and prospectless paths. They have gone through the feudal
reign; they must now go through the commercial (God forbid that for any
body's sake they should stop there!), and they will continue to advance,
till all are instructed, and all are masters; and government, in however
gorgeous a shape, be truly their servant. The problem of existing
governments is how to prepare for this inevitable period, and to
continue to be