At length, PEEL is called in "in a regular way." Being assured of his
quarterly fee, the state physician may now, in the magnanimity of his
soul, prescribe new life for moribund John Bull. Whether he has resolved
within himself to emulate the generous dealing of kindred professors--of
those sanative philosophers, whose benevolence, stamped in modest
handbills, "crieth out in the street," exclaiming "No cure no pay,"--we
know not; certain we are, that such is not the old Tory practice. On the
contrary, the healing, with Tory doctors, has ever been in an inverse
ratio to the reward. Like the faculty at large, the Tories have flourished
on the sickness of the patient. They have, with _Falstaff_, "turned
diseases to commodity;" their only concern being to keep out the
undertaker. Whilst there's life, there's profit,--is the philosophy of the
Tory College; hence, poor Mr. Bull, though shrunk, attenuated,--with a
blister on his head, and cataplasms at his soles,--has been kept just
alive enough to pay. And then his patience under Tory treatment--the
obedience of his swallow! "Admirable, excellent!" cried a certain doctor
(we will not swear that his name was not PEEL), when his patient pointed
to a dozen empty phials. "Taken them all, eh? Delightful! My dear sir, you
are _worthy_ to be ill." JOHN BULL having again called in the Tories, is
"worthy to be ill;" and very ill he will be.
The tenacity of life displayed by BULL is paralleled by a case quoted by
LE VAILLANT. That naturalist speaks of a turtle that continued to live
after its brain was taken from its skull, and the cavity stuffed _with
cotton_. Is not England, with spinning-jenny PEEL at the head of its
affairs, in this precise predicament? England may live; but inactive,
torpid; unfitted for all healthful exertion,--deprived of its grandest
functions--paralyzed in its noblest strength. We have a Tory Cabinet, but
where is the _brain_ of statesmanship?
Now, however, there are no Tories. Oh, no! Sir ROBERT PEEL is a
Conservative--LYNDHURST is a Conservative--all are Conservative. Toryism
has sloughed its old skin, and rejoices in a new coat of many colours; but
the sting remains--the venom is the same; the reptile that would have
struck to the heart the freedom of Europe, elaborates the self-same
poison, is endowed with the same subtilty, the same grovelling, tortuous
action. It still creeps upon its belly, and wriggles to its purpose. When
adders shall become eels, then will we believe that Conservatives cannot
be Tories.
When folks change their names--unless by the gracious permission of the
_Gazette_--they rarely do so to avoid the fame of brilliant deeds. It is
not the act of an over-sensitive modesty that induces _Peter Wiggins_ to
dub himself _John Smith_. Be certain of it, _Peter_ has not saved half a
boarding-school from the tremendous fire that entirely destroyed "Ringworm
House"--_Peter_ has not dived into the Thames, and rescued some
respectable attorney from a death hitherto deemed by his friends
impossible to him. It is from no such heroism that _Peter Wiggins_ is
compelled to take refuge in _John Smith_ from the oppressive admiration of
the world about him. Certainly not. Depend upon it, _Peter_ has been
signalised in the _Hue and Cry_, as one endowed with a love for the silver
spoons of other men--as an individual who, abusing the hospitality of his
lodgings, has conveyed away and sold the best goose feathers of his
landlady. What then, with his name ripe enough to drop from the tree of
life, remains to _Wiggins_, but to subside into _Smith_? What hope was
there for the well-known swindler, the posted pickpocket, the
callous-hearted, slug-brained _Tory_? None: he was hooted, pelted at; all
men stopped the nose at his approach. He was voted a nuisance, and turned
forth into the world, with all his vices, like ulcers, upon him. Well,
_Tory_ adopts the inevitable policy of _Wiggins_; he changes his name! He
comes forth, curled and sweetened, and with a smile upon his mealy face,
and placing his felon hand above the _vacuum_ on the left side of his
bosom--declares, whilst the tears he weeps would make a crocodile
blush--that he is by no means the _Tory_ his wicked, heartless enemies
would call him. Certainly not. His name is--_Conservative!_ There was,
once, to be sure, a _Tory_--in existence;
"But he is dead, and nailed in his chest!"
He is a creature extinct, gone with the wolves annihilated by the Saxon
monarch. There may be the skeleton of the animal in some rare collections
in the kingdom; but for the living creature, you shall as soon find a
phoenix building in the trees of Windsor Park, as a _Tory_ kissing hands
in Windsor Castle!
The lie is but gulped as a truth, and _Conservative_ is taken into
service. Once more, he is the _factotum_ to JOHN BULL. But when the knave
shall have worn out his second name--when he shall again be turned
away--look to your feather-beds, oh, JOHN! and foolish, credulous,
leathern-eared Mr. BULL--be sure and count your spoons!
Can it be supposed that the loss of office, that the ten years' hunger for
the loaves and fishes endured by the Tory party, has disciplined them into
a wiser humanity? Can it be believed that they have arrived at a more
comprehensive grasp of intellect--that they are ennobled by a loftier
consideration of the social rights of man--that they are gifted with a
more stirring sympathy for the wants that, in the present iniquitous
system of society, reduce him to little less than pining idiotcy, or
madden him to what the statutes call crime, and what judges, sleek as
their ermine, preach upon as rebellion to the government--the government
that, in fact, having stung starvation into treason, takes to itself the
loftiest praise for refusing the hangman--a task--for appeasing _Justice_
with simple transportation?
Already the Tories have declared themselves. In the flush of anticipated
success, PEEL at the Tamworth election denounced the French Revolution
that escorted Charles the Tenth--with his foolish head still upon his
shoulders--out of France, as the "triumph of might over right." It was the
right--the divine right of Charles--(the sacred _ampoule_, yet dropping
with the heavenly oil brought by the mystic dove for Clovis, had bestowed
the privilege)--to gag the mouth of man; to scourge a nation with decrees,
begot by bigot tyranny upon folly--to reduce a people into uncomplaining
slavery. Such was his right: and the burst of indignation, the
irresistible assertion of the native dignity of man, that shivered the
throne of Charles like glass, was a felonious might--a rebellious,
treasonous potency--the very wickedness of strength. Such is the opinion
of Conservative PEEL! Such the old Tory faith of the child of Toryism!
Since the Tamworth speech--since the scourging of Sir ROBERT by the French
press--PEEL has essayed a small philanthropic oration. He has endeavoured
to paint--and certainly in the most delicate water-colours--the horrors of
war. The premier makes his speech to the nations with the palm-branch in
his hand--with the olive around his brow. He has applied arithmetic to
war, and finds it expensive. He would therefore induce France to disarm,
that by reductions at home he may not be compelled to risk what would
certainly jerk him out of the premiership--the imposition of new taxes. He
may then keep his Corn Laws--he may then securely enjoy his sliding scale.
Such are the hopes that dictate the intimation to disarm. It is sweet to
prevent war; and, oh! far sweeter still to keep out the Wigs!
The Duke of WELLINGTON, who is to be the moral force of the Tory Cabinet,
is a great soldier; and by the very greatness of his martial fame, has
been enabled to carry certain political questions which, proposed by a
lesser genius, had been scouted by the party otherwise irresistibly
compelled to admit them. (Imagine, for instance, the Marquis of
Londonderry handling Catholic Emancipation.) Nevertheless, should "The
follies of the Wise"--a chronicle much wanted--be ever collected for the
world, his Grace of Wellington will certainly shine as a conspicuous
contributor. In the name of famine, what could have induced his Grace to
insult the misery at this moment, eating the hearts of thousands of
Englishmen? For, within these few days, the Victor of Waterloo expressed
his conviction that England was the only country in which "_the poor man,
if only sober and industrious_, WAS QUITE CERTAIN _of acquiring a
competency!_" And it is this man, imbued with this opinion, who is to be
hailed as the presiding wisdom--the great moral strength--the healing
humanity of the Tory Cabinet. If rags and starvation put up their prayer
to the present Ministry, what must be the answer delivered by the Duke of
Wellington? "YE ARE DRUNKEN AND LAZY!"
If on the night of the 24th of August--the memorable night on which this
heartless insult was thrown in the idle teeth of famishing thousands--the
ghosts of the victims of the Corn Laws,--the spectres of the wretches who
had been ground out of life by the infamy of Tory taxation, could have
been permitted to lift the bed-curtains of Apsley-House,--his Grace the
Duke of Wellington would have been scared by even a greater majority than
ultimately awaits his fellowship in the present Cabinet. Still we can only
visit upon the Duke the censure of ignorance. "He knows not what he says."
If it be his belief that England suffers only because she is drunken and
idle, he knows no more of England than the Icelander in his sledge: if, on
the other hand, he used the libel as a party warfare, he is still one of
the "old set,"--and his "crowning carnage, Waterloo," with all its
greatness, is but a poor set-off against the more lasting iniquities which
he would visit upon his fellow-men. Anyhow, he cannot--he must not--escape
from his opinion; we will nail him to it, as we would nail a weasel to a
barn-door; "_if Englishmen want competence, they must be drunken--they
must be idle_." Gentlemen Tories, shuffle the cards as you will, the Duke
of Wellington either lacks principle or brains.
Next week we will speak of the Whigs; of the good they have done--of the
good they have, with an instinct towards aristocracy--most foolishly, most
traitorously, missed.