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