“From that period till 1830,” to resume my citations from his earliest pamphlets, “the tactics of the Whigs consisted in gently and gradually extricating themselves from their false position as the disciples of Jacobinism, and assuming their ancient post as the hereditary guardians of an hereditary monarchy.” To ease the transition, they invented Liberalism, a bridge to regain the lost mainland, and recross on tiptoe the chasm over which they had sprung with so much precipitation. “A dozen years of ‘Liberal principles’ broke up the national party of England--cemented by half a century of prosperity and glory, compared with which all the annals of the realm are dim and lack-lustre. Yet so weak intrinsically was the oligarchical faction, that their chief, despairing to obtain a monopoly of power for his party, elaborately announced himself as the champion of his patrician order, and attempted to coalesce with the Liberalised leader of the Tories. Had that negotiation not led to the result which was originally intended by those interested, the Riots of Paris would not have occasioned the Reform of London. It is a great delusion to believe that revolutions are ever effected by a nation. It is a faction, and generally a small one, that overthrows a dynasty or remodels a constitution. A small party, strong by long exile from power, and desperate of success except by desperate means, invariably has recourse to a _coup d’état_.... The rights and liberties of a nation can only be preserved by institutions.... Life is short, man is imaginative, our passions high.... Let us suppose our ancient monarchy abolished, our independent hierarchy reduced to a stipendiary sect, the gentlemen of England deprived of their magisterial functions, and metropolitan prefects and sub-prefects established in the counties and principal towns commanding a vigorous and vigilant police, and backed by an army under the immediate order of a single House of Parliament.... But where then will be the liberties of England? Who will dare disobey London?... When these merry times arrive--the times of extraordinary tribunals and extraordinary taxes ... the phrase ‘Anti-Reformer’ will serve as well as that of ‘Malignant,’ and be as valid a plea as the former title for harassing and plundering those who venture to wince under the crowning mercies of centralisation.... I would address myself to the English Radicals. I do not mean those fine gentlemen or those vulgar adventurers who, in this age of quackery, may sail into Parliament by hoisting for the nonce the false colours of the movement; but I mean that honest and considerable party ... who have a definite object which they distinctly avow.... Not merely that which is just, but that which is also practicable, should be the aim of a sagacious politician. Let the Radicals well consider whether in attempting to achieve their avowed object they are not, in fact, only assisting