from Northumberland, clergymen came up by hundreds to Oxford, in order
to vote against him whose presence, a few days before, would have set
the bells of their parish churches jingling. Nay, such was the violence
of this new enmity that the old enmity of the Tories to Whigs, Radicals,
Dissenters, Papists, seemed to be forgotten. That Ministry which, when
it came into power at the close of 1828, was one of the strongest that
the country ever saw, was, at the close of 1829, one of the weakest. It
lingered another year, staggering between two parties, leaning now on
one, now on the other, reeling sometimes under a blow from the right,
sometimes under a blow from the left, and certain to fall as soon as the
Tory opposition and the Whig opposition could find a question on which
to unite. Such a question was found: and that Ministry fell without a
struggle.

Now what I wish to know is this. What reason have we to believe that any
administration which the right honourable Baronet can now form will have
a different fate? Is he changed since 1829? Is his party changed? He
is, I believe, still the same, still a statesman, moderate in opinions,
cautious in temper, perfectly free from that fanaticism which inflames
so many of his supporters. As to his party, I admit that it is not
the same; for it is very much worse. It is decidedly fiercer and
more unreasonable than it was eleven years ago. I judge by its public
meetings; I judge by its journals; I judge by its pulpits, pulpits which
every week resound with ribaldry and slander such as would disgrace the
hustings. A change has come over the spirit of a part, I hope not the
larger part, of the Tory body. It was once the glory of the Tories
that, through all changes of fortune, they were animated by a steady
and fervent loyalty which made even error respectable, and gave to what
might otherwise have been called servility something of the manliness
and nobleness of freedom. A great Tory poet, whose eminent services
to the cause of monarchy had been ill requited by an ungrateful Court,
boasted that

"Loyalty is still the same,
Whether it win or lose the game;
True as the dial to the sun,
Although it be not shined upon."

Toryism has now changed its character. We have lived to see a monster of
a faction made up of the worst parts of the Cavalier and the worst parts
of the Roundhead. We have lived to see a race of disloyal Tories. We
have lived to see Tories givi