And such was, also, the stuff which was to terrify, for a little while longer, our dear old friends “Law and Order.” While the hundreds of thousands were welcoming this new gospel, were learning a practicable path for their bewildered feet: the partisans of Government were absolutely dazed, blinded, with terror; and their horror at the growth of liberal opinions (otherwise, “the floodgates of sedition”) completely disabled them from discussing domestic politics with any semblance of calmness. As for the mediocrities in power,--they had succeeded in keeping out the shifty Whigs; but here was a third party coming to the front, with claims as good as their own, and promising to acquire a force which they might withstand in vain. Ministers, in short, were alarmed; and they announced their resolve, in the words of Lord Liverpool, to pursue the “Stern path of Duty!” Lord Sidmouth (now Home Secretary), whose qualities for statesmanship no person, other than his royal patron, had been able to discover since he left the Speaker’s chair in 1802,--was at his wits’ end. And minor lights, as Mr. Wilberforce, sighed and groaned over so much blasphemy as was rife, Cobbett’s being “the most pernicious of all.” The course of the Stern Path, as regards the subject of these pages, must be described in another chapter. Meanwhile, the immediate consequences of the publication of the first cheap _Register_ remain to be noted. All sorts of means were taken to hinder the circulation of the now ubiquitous journal. Booksellers who sold the _Register_ were threatened with loss of custom; publicans were threatened with the withdrawal of their licences; hawkers and pedlars were threatened with the police. Cheap opposition pamphlets were started.[5] The newspapers, which had been pretty quiet concerning Mr. Cobbett’s merits, ever since 1812, now began again:[6] the _New Times_ coming out with a specially grand affair, headed “COBBETT against COBBETT,” which was subsequently issued as a broadside. And a very serious charge did they bring against this “_convicted libeller_,” this “_firebrand_,” this “_brutal ruffian_,” this “_convicted incendiary_,” this “_hoary miscreant_,” and his “_ferocious journal_.”[7] In what, then, had he manifested this brutality,--this ferocity? By lacerating the naked back of another of his labourers? Running off with another man’s wife? Setting fire to barns and ricks? Defrauding the stock-exchange? None, none of these things. The criminal was proved, by overwhelming evidence,--“out of his own mouth” indeed--to have formerly denounced Reform!!! Sad fellow! FOOTNOTES