d. 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, 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 fashion to use with respect to
Wellington these last twenty years. Now what have those years been to
England? Why the years of ultra-gentility, everybody in England having
gone gentility mad during the last twenty years, and no people more so
than your pseudo-Radicals. Wellington was turned out, and your Whigs and
Radicals got in, and then commenced the period of ultra-gentility in
England. The Whigs and Radicals only hated Wellington as long as the
patronage of the country was in his hands, none of which they were
tolerably sure he would bestow