of equal power in the magic art.

* * * * *

"MEASURES, NOT MEN" is, as we have hinted already, the
ground-work of a true Tory's political creed; and measures themselves
only in so far as they expound and are consistent with principles. A man
may fail; the stoutest partisan become a renegado; and the pet measure
of a doughtiest champion may after all prove traitorous, unwise,
unworthy: but principle is eternally an unerring guide, a master to
whose words it is safe to swear, a leader whose flag is never lowered in
compromise, nor sullied by defeat. Defalcations of the generally
upright, derelictions of duty by the usually noble-minded, shake not
that man's faith which is founded on principle: for the cowardice, or
rashness, or dishonesty of some individual captain, he may feel shame,
but never for the _cause_ in which such hold commissions; he may often
find much fault with _soi-disant_ Tories, but never with the 'ism they
profess. We over-step their follies; we disclaim their corruptions; we
date above their faults; we wash our hands of their abuses. An
abstracted student in his chamber, building up his faith from the
foundations, and trying every stone of the edifice, takes little heed of
who is for him, and who against him, so Conscience is the architect, and
the Master of the house looks on approving. A man's mind is but one
whole; be it palace or hovel, feudal stronghold or Italian villa, it is
all of a piece: a duly subordinated spirit bears no superstructure of
the Radical, and the friable soil of discontented Liberalism, is too
sandy a foundation for ponderous fanes of the religious.

I rejoice in being accounted one of those unheroic, and therefore more
useful, members of society, who profess to be by no means ambitious of
reigning. A plain country gentleman, with a mind (thank Heaven!) well at
ease, and things generally, both external and internal, being in his
case consentaneous with happiness, would appear to have reached the acme
of human felicity; and no one but a fool cares, in any world, to
exemplify the dog's preference for the shadow. Unenvious, therefore, of
royalty, and fully crediting that _never-quoted_ sentiment of
Shakspeare's "Uneasy," &c., my motto, within the legitimate limits of
right reason, and in common with that of some ridiculed philosopher of
Roundhead times, is the prudent saying, "Whoever's king, I'll be
subject!"--ay, and for the masculine I place th