atters, the higher born, the better bred, the more classically
educated, and the more extensively possessed of moneys and lands our
honest-spoken Tory may be, ten to one the more is he afflicted with this
rabbies: and his mad propensities become positively criminal, when, as a
magistrate or a captain of dragoons, he thinks himself bound in
honourable duty to quell the enthusiasm of some disinterested patriots,
whose innocent wishes rise no higher than to subvert the existing order
of things, to secure for themselves a reasonable share of parks,
palaces, and pocket-money, and (as the very justifiable means for so
happy an end) manfully to sacrifice in the temple of Freedom the rogues
who would object to being robbed, and the tyrants who would be bloody
enough to fight for life and liberty.

A rabid Tory--you see it is a pet name of mine--feels no little contempt
for a squeezable character; and he is well assured, from history as well
as on his own conviction, that the noble army of martyrs lived and died
upon his principles: whereas the retrograde regiment of cowards, whom
the wisdom of providing for personal safety has in battle induced to run
away, _relictis non bene parmulis_--the clamorous cohort of bullies,
whom the necessities of impending castigation have sensibly induced to
eat their words--the volunteer company of light-heeled swindlers, whom
nature instructs that they must live, and honesty has neglected to
inform how--every one, in short, whose grand maxim (_quocunque modo
rem_) is temporizing expediency, and with whom the cogent argument "you
shall" has more force than the silly conscience-whisper of "you
ought,"--contributes to swell the band which the professor of Toryism,
the abstracted follower of principles and not of men, has the honour of
beholding in the angle of his diagram, inscribed "contradictory." Not
that your true Tory believes so ill of _all_ his adversaries; there are
some few geese among the cranes; an Abdiel here and there, who has long
felt irksome in the host, but for false shame is there still; sundry
men, having ambitious or illuminated wives, and too amiable, or too
prudent, to attempt a breach of peace at home; some thronging the
opposite benches, because their fathers and grandfathers topographically
occupied those same seats--a decent reason, supposing similarity of
places and names, to insure similarity of principles and practice; and
some--I dislike them not for honesty--confessing