"Did I not hear young Master Fitzallan tell his father the other day that after being at a third of your great English establishments he had never spoken but twice to the head Master of it? Don't I read of Oxford and Cambridge time after time expelling the young lords and high gentlemen, for every sort of misconduct and disorder? What do _they_ learn at the University, but to gamble away their money, and drink French wines? Sir, my notion is, that the times are out of joint. Children don't respect their parents and rulers. Parents and rulers suffer children to get the upper hand, and think themselves before their time, and without taking the _trouble_ to gain wisdom. The wholesome restraint of the old school is out of fashion; bit and bridle are taken off, and all the world scamper in the way they like best; while, to crown all the folly, the grandees are whetting knives to cut their own throats. "Suppose now, sir, that there was in all England, or any other country, but one single regiment of men who had arms and ammunition; and that it was the business of this single regiment to protect the king, and stand sentry over your banks, and prevent all commotions in your capital. If neither gun nor pistol, a dust of powder, nor a grain of shot could get into any other hands, would not that regiment, of only perhaps a thousand strong, be able to keep down a multitude that we could hardly reckon? but if the tower is opened, and a hundred thousand stand of arms taken out, and given to the people with plenty of balls and cartridges, and they are drilled from morning till night, learning all the new modes of squaring and filing off, the new _this_ and the new _that_, while the old regiment does nothing at all, but stand as if it was cut of paste-board, at the palace gates, and the gates of your city; where will the rulers be then? Why, to be sure, in the young and vigorous recruits, who only wanted what you have put into their hands to knock your train-bands upon their faces on the ground, like the poppy heads that some ancient warrior cut down for a sign to let the enemy know what he intended to do." "But Ned have we not some long heads in Parliament that will keep watch over our interests?" "Yes, sir, you have a few _long_, and a great many _short_ ones. Lord Liverpool is an honest man and a sensible man. Mr. Peel is a man that I believe would not tell a lie to make himself a duke; and the greatest fault I see in him, is that he is so fond of sporting, and so afraid that any of poor Dick Martin's feeling for the suffering dumb creation, should interfere with his diversion, that he stifles the voice of humanity within his breast; but it will not be so always, I hope, for the best courage is ever to be found in a tender heart. The lion and the lamb, sir, make a fine mixture in a man's character." "Then you think cruelty to animals a sin, Ned?"