Whereupon his lordship rang the bell.
The valet again appeared.
Lord Railton again held out his finger, as at our meeting. I was about to take it, when his lordship moved it quickly—pointed to the door—and said—"Show that person out!"
For a second I stood astounded and confused. In another second I found myself breathing on the sunny side of Grosvenor Square. How I reached it, I no longer remember.
THE PEOPLE.[72]
Mr Cobden, in the House of Commons, has given us a definition of the term which heads this article:—The People are the inhabitants of towns. "I beg to tell the honourable member for Limerick," said the arch-leaguer, a few evenings since, "and the noble lord, the member for Lynn, and the two hundred and forty members who sit behind him, that there are other parties to be consulted with regard to their proposition—that there are The People; I don't mean the country party, but the people living in the towns, and who will govern this country."
"What is the city," says Shakspeare, "but the People?"——"True, the people are the city."
Against Mr Cobden we pit Mr D'Israeli, who defines the people to be the country gentlemen. Against Shakspeare, we bring M. Michelet, who, in an affectionate dedication of his latest work to his fellow-labourer and friend, M. Edgar Quinet, modestly acquaints the said M. Edgar, that The People are neither more nor less than the author of the book and the gentlemen to whom it is inscribed:—