A Reformer is not a gregarious animal. Speculative opinion leads men different ways, each according to his particular fancy:—it is prejudice or interest that drives before it the herd of mankind. That _which is_, with all its confirmed abuses and ‘tickling commodities,’ is alone solid and certain: that _which may be_ or _ought to be_, has a thousand shapes and colours, according to the eye that sees it, is infinitely variable and evanescent in its effects. Talk of mobs as we will, the only true mob is that incorrigible mass of knaves and fools in every country, who never think at all, and who never feel for any one but themselves. I call any assembly of people a mob (be it the House of Lords or House of Commons) where each person’s opinion on any question is governed by what others say of it, and by what he can get by it. The only instance of successful resistance in the House of Commons to Ministers for many years was in the case of the Income-Tax; which touched their own pockets nearly. This was ‘a feeling disputation,’ in which selfishness got the better of servility, while reason and humanity might have pleaded in vain. The exception proved the rule; and this evidence was alone wanting to establish their character for independence and disinterestedness. When some years ago Mr. Robson brought forward in the House the case of an Exchequer Bill for 3_l._ 16_s._ which had been refused payment at the Bank, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (then Mr. Addington, now Lord Sidmouth) rose, and in a tone of indignation, severely reprimanded Mr. Robson for having prematurely brought forward a fact which he knew to be impossible; and the House cheered the Minister, and scouted Mr. Robson and his motion for inquiry. The next day, Mr. Robson repeated his charge, and Mr. Addington rose, and in the same tone of official authority, brow-beat Mr. Robson for having brought forward, as something reprehensible and extraordinary, what he said happened every day, though the day before he had undertaken of his own accord to pronounce it impossible; and the House cheered the Minister, and scouted Mr. Robson and his motion for inquiry. What was it to them whether Mr. Robson was right or wrong? It was their cue (I speak this of the House of Commons of 1803) to support the Minister, whether right or wrong! Every corporate body, or casual concourse of people, is nothing more than a collection of prejudices, and the only arguments current with them, a collection of watch-words. You may ring the changes for ever on the terms Bribery and Corruption with the people in Palace-yard, as they do in the Room over the way on Religion, Loyalty, Public Credit, and Social Order. There is no difference whatever in this respect between the Great Vulgar and the Small, who are managed just in the same way by their different leaders. To procure unanimity, to get men to act in _corps_, we must appeal for the most part to gross and obvious motives, to