As he was not afraid to take the part of Wellington when he was scurvily used by all parties, and when it was dangerous to take his part, so he is not afraid to speak the naked truth about Wellington in these days, when it is dangerous to say anything about him but what is sycophantically laudatory.  He said in ’32, that as to vice, Wellington was not worse than his neighbours; but he is not going to say, in ’54, that Wellington was a noble-hearted fellow; for he believes that a more cold-hearted individual never existed.  His conduct to Warner, the poor Vaudois, and Marshal Ney, showed that.  He said, in ’32, that he was a good general and a brave man; but he is not going, in ’54, to say that he was the best general, or the bravest man the world ever saw.  England has produced a better general—­France two or three—­both countries many braver men.  The son of the Norfolk clergyman was a brave man; Marshal Ney was a braver man.  Oh, that battle of Copenhagen!  Oh, that covering the retreat of the Grand Army!  And though he said in ’32 that he could write, he is not going to say in ’54 that he is the best of all military writers.  On the contrary, he does not hesitate to say that any Commentary of Julius Caesar, or any chapter in Justinus, more especially the one about the Parthians, is worth the ten volumes of Wellington’s Despatches; though he has no doubt that, by saying so, he shall especially rouse the indignation of a certain newspaper, at present one of the most genteel journals imaginable—­ with a slight tendency to Liberalism, it is true, but perfectly genteel—­which is nevertheless the very one which, in ’32, swore bodily that Wellington could neither read nor write, and devised an ingenious plan for teaching him how to read.

Now, after the above statement, no one will venture to say, if the writer should be disposed to bear hard upon Radicals, that he would be influenced by a desire to pay court to princes, or to curry favour with Tories, or from being a blind admirer of the Duke of Wellington; but the writer is not going to declaim against Radicals, that is, real Republicans, or their principles; upon the whole, he is something of an admirer of both.  The writer has always had as much admiration for everything that is real and honest as he has had contempt for the opposite.  Now real Republicanism is certainly a very fine thing, a much finer thing than Toryism, a system of common robbery, which is nevertheless far better than Whiggism {7}—­a compound of petty larceny, popular instruction, and receiving of stolen goods.  Yes, real Republicanism is certainly a very fine thing, and your real Radicals and Republicans are certainly very fine fellows, or rather were fine fellows, for the Lord only knows where to find them at the present day—­the writer does not.  If he did, he would at any time go five miles to invite one of them to dinner, even supposing that he had to go to a workhouse in order to find the person he wished to invite.