In the first place, the Englishman is a born Conservative, or, to use the old phrase, a Tory. Toryism is of two kinds,--political and social. The majority of the nation is certainly not, at the present day, Tory in political preferences, though there is still a large leaven of that feeling also. But very many persons who are political Liberals are social Tories: they venerate the aristocracy; they batten daily upon the "Court Circular"; they cling to class distinctions in theory, and still more in practice; they strain towards "good society" and social conformity; their ideal is "respectability." Indeed, it appears to me that comparatively very few English people are free from some tincture of Toryism in either political or social sentiment, or both: one knows many Radicals, some Democrats, and even a few theoretic Republicans; but it by no means follows that all or most of these are not Tories in grain, in some part of their mental or personal anatomy. A total revulsion in public and popular feeling would have to take place, before, for instance, such an institution as our House of Lords could be in any practical danger: no such revulsion appears to be within the purview of any one now living, even as a matter of opinion, much less of practical performance. I believe, that, if universal suffrage were to become the law of the land to-morrow, not much difference would ensue in the _personnel_ or the tone of the House of Commons. It could hardly help ensuing, in the long run, by the inevitable reaction Of institutions upon the people who exercise or undergo them, and, with a changed House of Commons, much else would, no doubt, be changed; but there seems strong reason to doubt whether a democratic constituency would, in the earlier stages, produce a decisively democratic body of representatives. As regards English opinion upon the American dispute, nothing was commoner than the remark, that the Southerners were "the better gentlemen," or "represented the aristocratic element," and therefore commanded the speaker's good wishes in their struggle; and this not necessarily from members of the landed gentry, or from political anti-liberals, but equally from Liverpool merchants, or others of the middle class. The remark may have been true or incorrect,--with that I have nothing to do; but it was very generally accepted in England as accurate, and represented a large body of consequent sympathy. In like manner, people were slow to believe in the possibility of Lincoln's competence for his post; because he rose from the populace to his great elevation, they inferred that he was a boor and a bungler, not (as might have seemed equally fair and rather more logical) that he was a capable man; and, with a foregone conclusion, they were quite ready to construe as blundering and grotesque that line of policy and conduct on his part, which, after a war of no immoderate length, resulted in the surmounting of obstacles which they had dubbed insurmountable.