To-morrow morning I start for “Modern Athens”! My readers will, I dare say, perceive how much my “antalluct” has been improved since I crossed the Tyne. What it will get to when I shall have crossed the Tweed, God only knows. I wish very much that I could stop a day at Berwick, in order to find some feelosofer to ascertain, by some chemical process, the exact degree of the improvement of the “antalluct.” I am afraid, however, that I shall not be able to manage this; for I must get along; beginning to feel devilishly home-sick since I have left Newcastle.
They tell me that Lord Howick, who is just married by-the-by, made a speech here the other day, during which he said, “that the Reform was only the means to an end; and that the end was cheap government.” Good! stand to that, my Lord, and, as you are now married, pray let the country fellows and girls marry too: let us have cheap government, and I warrant you that there will be room for us all, and plenty for us to eat and drink. It is the drones, and not the bees, that are too numerous; it is the vermin who live upon the taxes, and not those who work to raise them, that we want to get rid of. We are keeping fifty thousand tax-eaters to breed gentlemen and ladies for the industrious and laborious to keep. These are the opinions which I promulgate; and whatever your flatterers may say to the contrary, and whatever feelosofical stuff Brougham and his rabble of writers may put forth, these opinions of mine will finally prevail. I repeat my anxious wish (I would call it a hope if I could) that your father’s resolution may be equal to his sense, and that he will do that which is demanded by the right which the people have to insist upon measures necessary to restore the greatness and happiness of the country; and, if he show a disposition to do this, I should deem myself the most criminal of all mankind, if I were to make use of any influence that I possess to render his undertaking more difficult than it naturally must be; but, if he show not that disposition, it will be my bounden duty to endeavour to drive him from the possession of power; for, be the consequences to individuals what they may, the greatness, the freedom, and the happiness of England must be restored.
END.
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