qualities, that for a thousand years have secured thy national
developement. And now all thy memorial dynasties end in the
huckstering rule of some thirty unknown and anonymous jobbers!
The Thirty at Athens were at least tyrants. They were marked
men. But the obscure majority, who under our present
constitution are destined to govern England, are as secret as
a Venetian conclave. Yet on their dark voices all depends.
Would you promote or prevent some great measure that may
affect the destinies of unborn millions, and the future
character of the people,--take, for example, a system of
national education,--the minister must apportion the plunder
to the illiterate clan; the scum that floats on the surface of
a party; or hold out the prospect of honours, which are only
honourable when in their transmission they impart and receive
lustre; when they are the meed of public virtue and public
services, and the distinction of worth and of genius. It is
impossible that the system of the thirty can long endure in an
age of inquiry and agitated spirit like the present. Such a
system may suit the balanced interests and the periodical and
alternate command of rival oligarchical connections: but it
can subsist only by the subordination of the sovereign and the
degradation of the multitude; and cannot accord with an age,
whose genius will soon confess that Power and the People are
both divine.

"He can't last ten days," said a whig secretary of the
treasury with a triumphant glance at Mr Taper as they met in
Pall Mall; "You're out for our lives."

"Don't you make too sure for yourselves," rejoined in despair