apprehensions of wild-cat legislative schemes,
or the imminence of a Radical millennium, than five minutes' contemplation
of our champions of progress as they recline together, dignified and
whiskered and bland, upon the benches of St. Stephen's.

But let us proceed with our portrait, which I vow is a most pleasing one.
Our typical legislator is of decent birth, or at least hopeful of
acquiring what he rightly protests to be but 'the guinea stamp' by
judiciously munificent contributions to his party's purse; honest and
scrupulous in dealing; neither so honest nor so scrupulous in thinking;
addicted to phrases and a trifle too impatient of their meaning, yet of
proved carefulness in drawing the line between phrase and practice; a
first-rate committeeman (and only those who have sat long in committee can
sound the depths of this praise); locally admired; with much _bonhomie_
of manner, backed by a reputation for standing no nonsense; good-tempered,
honestly anxious to reconcile conflicting interests and do the best for
the unconflicting ones of himself and his country; but above all a man who
knows where to stop. I vow (I repeat) he makes a dignified and amiable
figure. One can easily understand why people like to be represented by
such a man. It gives a feeling of security--a somewhat illusory one, I
believe; and security is the first instinct of a state. One can
understand, why the exhortations, dehortations, precepts, and instructions
of parents, preachers, schoolmasters tend explicitly and implicitly to the
reproduction of this admired bloom.

Yet one may whisper that it has--shall we say?--its failings; and its
failings are just those which are least to be commended to the emulation
of youth. It is, for instance, constitutionally timid. Violent action of
any kind will stampede it in a panic, and, like the Countess in _Evan
Harrington_, it "does not ruffle well." It betrays (I think) ill-breeding
in its disproportionate terror whenever an anarchist bomb explodes, and in
the ferocity of its terror it can be crueller than the assailant.
"My good people," it provokes one to say, "by all means stamp out these
dangers, but composedly, as becomes men conscious of their strength.
Even allowing for the unscrupulousness of your assailant, you have still
nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand of the odds in your favour;
and so long as you answer the explosions of weak anarchy by cries
suggestive of the rage of th