nonsense-verses
about? A family of dastard despots, who did their best, during a century
and more, to tread out the few sparks of independent feeling still
glowing in Scotland--but enough has been said about ye. Amongst those
who have been prodigal in abuse and defamation of Lavengro, have been
your modern Radicals, and particularly a set of people who filled the
country with noise against the King and Queen, Wellington and the Tories,
in '32. About these people the writer will presently have occasion to
say a good deal, and also of real Radicals. As, however, it may be
supposed that he is one of those who delight to play the sycophant to
kings and queens, to curry favour with Tories, and to bepraise
Wellington, he begs leave to state that such 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
bodily 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,