h is not the case.

About kings and queens he has nothing to say; about Tories, simply that
he believes them to be a bad set; about Wellington, however, it will be
necessary for him to say a good deal, of mixed import, as he will
subsequently frequently have occasion to mention him in connection with
what he has to say about pseudo-Radicals.

CHAPTER X--Pseudo-Radicals.

About Wellington, then, he says, that he believes him at the present day
to be infinitely overrated. But there certainly was a time when he was
shamefully underrated. Now what time was that? Why the time of pseudo-
Radicalism, par excellence, from '20 to '32. Oh, the abuse that was
heaped on Wellington by those who traded in Radical cant--your newspaper
editors and review writers! and how he was sneered at then by your Whigs,
and how faintly supported he was by your Tories, who were 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
fashi