half ashamed of him; for your Tories, though capital fellows as followers, when you want nobody to back you, are the faintest creatures in the world when you cry in your agony, “Come and help me!” Oh, assuredly Wellington was infamously used at that time, especially by your traders in Radicalism, who howled at and hooted him; said he had every vice—­was no general—­ was beaten at Waterloo—­was a poltroon—­moreover a poor illiterate creature, who could scarcely read or write; nay, a principal Radical paper said boldly he could not read, and devised an ingenious plan for teaching Wellington how to read.  Now this was too bad; and the writer, being a lover of justice, frequently spoke up for Wellington, saying, that as for vice, he was not worse than his neighbours; that he was brave; that he won the fight at Waterloo, from a half-dead man, it is true, but that he did win it.  Also, that he believed he had read “Rules for the Manual and Platoon Exercises” to some purpose; moreover, that he was sure he could write, for that he the writer had once written to Wellington, and had received an answer from him; nay, the writer once went so far as to strike a blow for Wellington; for the last time he used his fists was upon a Radical sub-editor, who was mobbing Wellington in the street, from behind a rank of grimy fellows; but though the writer spoke up for Wellington to a certain extent, when he was shamefully underrated, and once struck a blow for him when he was about being hustled, he is not going to join in the loathsome sycophantic nonsense which it has been the fashion to use with respect to Wellington these last twenty years.  Now what have those years been to England!  Why the years of ultra-gentility, everybody in England having gone gentility mad during the last twenty years, and no people more so than your pseudo-Radicals.  Wellington was turned out, and your Whigs and Radicals got in, and then commenced the period of ultra-gentility in England.  The Whigs and Radicals only hated Wellington as long as the patronage of the country was in his hands, none of which they were tolerably sure he would bestow on them; but no sooner did they get it into their own, than they forthwith became admirers of Wellington.  And why?  Because he was a duke, petted at Windsor and by foreign princes, and a very genteel personage.  Formerly many of your Whigs and Radicals had scarcely a decent coat on their backs; but now the plunder of the country was at their disposal, and they had as good a chance of being genteel as any people.  So they were willing to worship Wellington because he was very genteel, and could not keep the plunder of the country out of their hands.  And Wellington has been worshipped, and prettily so, during the last fifteen or twenty years.  He is now a noble fine-hearted creature; the greatest general the world ever produced; the bravest of men; and—­and—­ mercy upon us! the greatest of military writers!  Now the present writer will not join in such sycophancy.