orting with anger. What the devil is all this for, thought
I. He guessed at once what was passing in my mind, and, with a knowing
touch of his elbow, whispered:--

"There's a new coachman a-going to try 'em, and I'll leave him a
precious legacy."

This is precisely what the Whigs did in their surrender of power to
the Tories. They, indeed, left them a precious legacy:--without an
ally abroad, with discontent and starvation at home, distant and
expensive wars, depressed trade, and bankrupt speculation, form some
portion of the valuable heritage they bequeathed to their heirs in
power. The most sanguine saw matter of difficulty, and the greater
number of men were tempted to despair at the prospects of the
Conservative party; for, however happily all other questions may have
terminated, they still see, in the corn-law, a point whose subtle
difficulty would seem inaccessible to legislation. Ah! could the two
great parties, that divide the state, only lay their heads together
for a short time, and carry out that beautiful principle that Scribe
announces in one of his vaudevilles:--

"Que le ble se vend cher, et le pain bon marche."

And why, after all, should not the collective wisdom of England be
able to equal in ingenuity the conceptions of a farce-writer?
Meanwhile, it is plain that political dissensions, and the rivalries
of party, will prevent that mutual good understanding which might
prove so beneficial to all. Reconciliations are but flimsy things at
best; and whether the attempt be made to conciliate two rival
churches, two opposite factions, or two separate interests of any kind
whatever, it is usually a failure. It, therefore, becomes the duty of
every good subject, and, _a fortiori_, of every good Conservative, to
bestir himself at the present moment, and see what can be done to
retrieve the sinking fortune of the state. Taxation, like flogging in
the army, never comes on the right part of the back. Sometimes too
high, sometimes too low. There is no knowing where to lay it on.
Besides that, we have by this time got such a general raw all over us,
there isn't a square inch of sound flesh that presents itself for a
new infliction. Since the first French Revolution, the ingenuity of
man has been tortured on the subject of finance; and had Dionysius
lived in our days, instead of offering a bounty for the discovery of a
new pleasure, he would have proposed a reward to the man who devised a
new tax.

Withou