sserting, That
he, Oliver, was the Ablest-Man of England, the King of England;
that he, Oliver, would undertake governing England. His way of
making this same 'assertion,' the one way he had of making it,
has given rise to immense criticism: but the assertion itself in
what way soever 'made,' is it not somewhat of a solemn one,
somewhat of a tremendous one!

And now do but contrast this Oliver with my right honourable
friend Sir Jabesh Windbag, Mr. Facing-both-ways, Viscount
Mealymouth, Earl of Windlestraw, or what other Cagliostro,
Cagliostrino, Cagliostraccio, the course of Fortune and
Parliamentary Majorities has constitutionally guided to that
dignity, any time during these last sorrowful hundred-and-fifty
years! Windbag, weak in the faith of a God, which he believes
only at Church on Sundays, if even then; strong only in the
faith that Paragraphs and Plausibilities bring votes; that Force
of Public Opinion, as he calls it, is the primal Necessity of
Things, and highest God we have:--Windbag, if we will consider
him, has a problem set before him which may be ranged in the
impossible class. He is a Columbus minded to sail to the
indistinct country of NOWHERE, to the indistinct country of
WHITHERWARD, by the _friendship_ of those same waste-tumbling
Water-Alps and howling waltz of All the Winds; not by conquest
of them and in spite of them, but by friendship of them, when
once _they_ have made up their mind! He is the most original
Columbus I ever saw. Nay, his problem is not an impossible one:
he will infallibly _arrive_ at that same country of NOWHERE; his
indistinct Whitherward will be a _Thither_ward! In the Ocean
Abysses and Locker of Davy Jones, there certainly enough do he
and _his_ ship's company, and all their cargo and navigatings, at
last find lodgement.

Oliver knew that his America lay THERE, Westward Ho;--and it was
not entirely by _friendship_ of the Water-Alps, and yeasty insane
Froth-Oceans, that he meant to get thither! He sailed
accordingly; had compass-card, and Rules of Navigation,--older
and greater than these Froth-Oceans, old as the Eternal God! Or
again, do but think of this. Windbag in these his probable five
years of office has to prosper and get Paragraphs: the
Paragraphs of these five years must be his salvation, or he is a
lost man; redemption nowhere in the Worlds or in the Times
discoverable for him. Oliver too would like his Paragraphs;
successes, popularities i