teries appear to have settled that
he surely will not; that this melancholy wriggling seesaw of red-tape
Trojans and Protectionist Greeks must continue its course till--what
_can_ happen, my friends, if this go on continuing?

And yet, perhaps, England has by no means so settled it. Quit the clubs
and coteries, you do not hear two rational men speak long together upon
politics, without pointing their inquiries towards this man. A Minister
that will attack the Augeas Stable of Downing Street, and begin
producing a real Management, no longer an imaginary one, of our affairs;
_he_, or else in few years Chartist Parliament and the Deluge come: that
seems the alternative. As I read the omens, there was no man in my time
more authentically called to a post of difficulty, of danger, and of
honor than this man. The enterprise is ready for him, if he is ready for
it. He has but to lift his finger in this enterprise, and whatsoever
is wise and manful in England will rally round him. If the faculty and
heart for it be in him, he, strangely and almost tragically if we look
upon his history, is to have leave to try it; he now, at the eleventh
hour, has the opportunity for such a feat in reform as has not, in these
late generations, been attempted by all our reformers put together.

As for Protectionist jargon, who in these earnest days would occupy many
moments of his time with that? "A Costermonger in this street," says
Crabbe, "finding lately that his rope of onions, which he hoped would
have brought a shilling, was to go for only sevenpence henceforth, burst
forth into lamentation, execration and the most pathetic tears. Throwing
up the window, I perceived the other costermongers preparing impatiently
to pack this one out of their company as a disgrace to it, if he would
not hold his peace and take the market-rate for his onions. I
looked better at this Costermonger. To my astonished imagination, a
star-and-garter dawned upon the dim figure of the man; and I perceived
that here was no Costermonger to be expelled with ignominy, but a
sublime goddess-born Ducal Individual, whom I forbear to name at this
moment! What an omen;--nay to my astonished imagination, there dawned
still fataler omens. Surely, of all human trades ever heard of, the
trade of Owning Land in England ought _not_ to bully us for drink--money
just now!"

"Hansard's Debates," continues Crabbe farther on, "present many
inconsistencies of speech; lamentable unverac