s long as he could help it; and who (without meaning to
speak presumptuously, or in one's own person unauthorized by opinion) is
one of the merest soldiers, though a great one, that ever
existed,--without genius of any other sort,--with scarcely a civil
public quality either commanding or engaging (as far as the world in
general can see),--and with no more to say for himself than the most
mechanical clerk in office? In what respect is the Duke of Wellington
better fitted to be a parliamentary leader, than the Sir Arthur
Wellesley of twenty years back? Or what has re-cast the habits and
character of the Colonel Wellesley of the East Indies, to give him an
unprofessional consideration for the lives and liberties of his
fellow-creatures?

And yet the Duke of Wellington (it is said) _may_, after all, be in
earnest in his professions of reform and advancement. If so, he will be
the most remarkable instance that ever existed, of the triumph of reason
over the habits of a life, and the experience of mankind. I have looked
for some such man through a very remarkable period of the world, when
an honest declaration to this effect would have set him at the top of
mankind, to be worshipped for ever; and I never found the glorious
opportunity seized,--not by Napoleon when he came from Elba,--not by the
allies when they conquered him,--not by Louis Philippe, though he was
educated in adversity. I mean that he has shown himself a prince born,
of the most aristocratic kind; and evidently considers himself as
nothing but the head of a new dynasty. When the Duke of Wellington had
the opportunity of being a reformer, of his own free will, he resisted
it as long as he could. He opposed reform up to the last moment of its
freedom from his dictation; he declared that ruin would follow it; that
the institutions of the country were perfect without it; and that, at
the very least, the less of it the better. And for this enmity, even if
no other reason existed,--even if his new light were sincere,--the Duke
of Wellington ought not to have the _honour_ of leading reform. It is
just as if a man had been doing all he could to prevent another from
entering his own house, and then, when he found that the by-standers
would insist on his having free passage, were to turn to them, smiling,
and say, "Well, since it must be so, allow me to do the honours of the
mansion." Everybody knows what this proposal would be called by the
by-standers. And if the way