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. Amongst the real Radicals of
England, those who flourished from the year '16 to '20, there were
certainly extraordinary characters, men partially insane, perhaps, but
honest and brave--they did not make a market of the principles which they
professed, and never intended to do so; they believed in them, and were
willing to risk their lives in endeavouring to carry them out. The
writer wishes to speak in particular of two of these men, both of whom
perished on the scaffold--their names were Thistlewood