_Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 249. The reader will be reminded of _Croaker_ in the fourth act of the _Good-natured Man_: ‘Blood and gunpowder in every line of it. Blown up! murderous dogs! all blown up! (_Reads._) “Our pockets are low, and money we must have.” Ay, there’s the reason: they’ll blow us up _because they have got low pockets_.... Perhaps this moment I’m treading on lighted matches, blazing brimstone, and barrels of gunpowder. They are preparing to blow me up into the clouds. Murder!... Here, John, Nicodemus, search the house. Look into the cellars, to see if there be any combustibles below, and above in the apartments, that no matches be thrown in at the windows. _Let all the fires be put out_, and let the _engine_ be drawn out in the yard, to _play upon the house_ in case of necessity.’—_Croaker_ was a deep politician. The _engine_ to _play_ upon the _house_: mark that! Footnote 114: This illustration of the old fable of the mouse and the mountain falls short of an exhibition in the Honourable House, on the 29th of January 1817; when Mr. Canning, amidst a tremendous denunciation of the parliamentary reformers, and a rhetorical chaos of storms, whirlwinds, rising suns, and twilight assassins, produced in proof of his charges—_Spence’s Plan!_ which was received with an _éclat_ of laughter on one side, and shrugs of surprise, disappointment, and disapprobation on the other. I can find but one parallel for the Right Honourable Gentleman’s dismay: So having said, awhile he stood, expecting Their universal shout and high applause To fill his ear; when contrary he hears On all sides, from innumerable tongues, A dismal universal hiss, the sound Of public scorn.—_Paradise Lost_, x. 504. This Spencean chimaera, which is the very foolishness of folly, and which was till lately invisible to the naked eye of the political entomologist, has since been subjected to a _lens_ of _extraordinary power_, under which, like an insect in a microscope, it has appeared a formidable and complicated monster, all bristles, scales, and claws, with a ‘husk about it like a chestnut’: _horridus, in jaculis et pelle Libystidis ursae!_ Footnote 115: _Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 271. Footnote 116: _Ibid._ Footnote 117: _Ibid._ p. 258. Footnote 118: _Ibid._ Footnote 119: _Ibid._ p. 273. Footnote 120: _Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. p. 276. Footnote 121: _Ibid._ p. 260. Footnote 122: _Ibid._ p. 192. Footnote 123: