There is a strange man in the House of Commons, who is distinguished by being the particular object of the satire in the _Anti-Jacobin_ and having devoted himself most especially to Tierney during the last sessions, a Mr. Nicholl. His opinions upon the state of Europe have at least the merit of singularity. The Emperor of Russia imputes it to shoe-strings and round hats; Dr. Ingenhousz to freemasonry; but Mr. Nicholl ascribes all the disorders to the great families. ‘Aye, Sir,’ said he to Tierney, ‘unless they are crushed nothing can be done.’ He has explicitly protested to Tierney that unless he will bring forward a motion to that effect, he must no longer count upon his support. He called three times in one morning to obtain T.’s answer. Each time, like Dick in _The Confederacy_, ‘I’ll call a coach,’ then, ‘I’ll call a coach,’ he declared he would retire to his farm, and cultivate sour land. ‘I’ll go; I certainly will, Sir. These great families, this oligarchy, destroy us, Sir. Yes, Sir, they oppress us. Why look at them individually? Have they any single merit? Why, there is Ld. Fitzwilliam, a flat retailer in dull prose of Burke’s poetical, mad flights: has he not plunged us in this war? There’s Ld. Spencer recovering from epilepsy, merely to squander thousands upon an early edition. As to the house of Russell, Sir, Mr. Burke has handled them properly. The Cavendishes, Sir, are so notoriously stupid that they blunt satire; but see the head of them, Sir, the D. of Devonshire. Sir, why, I assure you I am credibly informed, I have it from the best authority, Sir, that he is a _mere sensualist_.’ (I wrote this to Chatsworth. The Duke, who, in fact, was paying for this said sensuality, laughed on his sick bed heartily.) This shows the _travers_ of the human mind. Nicholl’s understanding has not kept pace with events. Sixty years ago, when he first flourished in manhood, the cry might have had some foundation. Sir Robert Walpole and the great Whigs did monopolise, from the Cabinet down to the turnpikes’ keepers. But since Lord Chatham, and, more particularly, his son’s Administration, the policy has been to annihilate all family unions; indeed, there is not a man of the Corresponding Society more bitter against the aristocracy than Pitt and Canning are. Pelham has resigned the Secretaryship, and the gentle Castlereagh, at the recommendation of Ld. Cornwallis, is to keep it as a principal, no longer as _locum tenens_.[232]