Again, the Whigs are victims to their inherent sense of politeness—­to their instinctive observance of courtesy towards the Tories.  There has been no bold defiance—­no challenge to mortal combat for the cause of public good; but when Whig has called out Tory, it has been in picked and holiday phrase—­

  “As if a brother should a brother dare,
  To gentle exercise and proof of arms.”

For a long time the people have expected to see “cracked crowns and bloody noses,” and at length, with true John Bull disgust, turned from the ring, convinced that the Whigs, whatever play they might make, would never go in and fight.

But have the Tories been correspondingly courteous?  By no means; the generosity of politeness has been wholly with the Whigs.  They, like frolicsome youths at a carnival, have pelted their antagonists with nothing harder than sugar-plums—­with egg-shells filled with rose-water; while the Tories have acknowledged such holiday missiles with showers of brickbats, and eggs not filled with aromatic dew.  What was the result?  The Tories increased in confidence and strength with every new assault; whilst the battered Whigs, from their sheer pusillanimity, became noisome in the nostrils of the country.

At length, the loaves and fishes being about to be carried off, the Whigs speak out:  like sulky Master Johnny, who, pouting all dinner-time, with his finger in his mouth, suddenly finds his tongue when the apple-dumplings are to be taken from the table.  Then does he advance his plate, seize his ivory knife and fork, put on a look of determined animation, and cry aloud for plenty of paste, plenty of fruit, and plenty of sugar!  And then Mrs. Tory (it must be confessed a wicked old Mother Cole in her time), with a face not unlike the countenance of a certain venerable paramour at a baptismal rite, declares upon her hopes of immortality that the child shall have nothing of the sort, there being nothing so dangerous to the constitution as plenty of flour, plenty of fruit, and plenty of sugar.  Therefore, there is a great uproar with Master Johnny:  the House, to use a familiar phrase, is turned out of the windows; the neighbourhood is roused; Master Johnny rallies his friends about him, that is, all the other boys of the court, and the fight begins.  Johnny and his mates make a very good fight, but certain heavy Buckinghamshire countrymen—­fellows of fifty stone—­are brought to the assistance of that screaming beldame Mother Tory, and poor Master Johnny has no other election than to listen to the shouts of triumph that declare there never shall be plenty of flour, plenty of sugar, or, in a word, plenty of pudding.