I warn you, are mighty apt to take offence. You must speak them soft and speak them fair. They like attention from that very class whom they wish to overturn. So, whether you take radicals or not, at least be sure to take friends from the lower and middling ranks in all your movements. Crn I know will object. His motto, I suspect, has ever been, "I bide my time." But let him bethink himself that we may not wait his time, and that this tide in the affairs of men may flow past him, and leave the golden sand dry under his feet. You must not be frightened by some of the means by which we must work, or startled at the fierce and terrific aspect, the revolutionary and levelling doctrines-the fearful yelling which will soon be raised around you. To that you as yet are less accustomed. At first we were horribly alarmed when this third power in the country came forward like a giant in his strength, as if at once from the cradle, and leapt among us like Minerva from the head of Jupiter, brandishing with resistless might the tremendous club of physical strength. We found, however, that the best way to steel our nerves, and disguise both the danger and our fears, was to join in the same war whoop. Set about this immediately, that the House of Commons may meet under the like intimidation with the Peers, and with the spectacle of these meetings, in which whigs are to lead the numbers, in vivid colours, all around them. Our triumph then is sure. There are in the Commons many men such as H-w-d, and their pretensions to moderation and independence are our best cards. They will stick fast by us if we are once in power. The Rd bearer of this letter will explain more. We are all off in different quarters on the same errand, and you will presently see a prodigious bustle and effort everywhere. The Queen and dismissal of ministers! Drive the blow hard, and it will yet do. We wish Edinburgh and your whigs to stand well forward. To have Edinburgh will be indeed a change. Yours, (L. S.) GREY, EPISTLE FROM T. JONATHAN WOOLER, EDITOR OF THE BLACK DWARF, AND BEELZEBUB INCARNATE, ΤΟ MOLOCH, PRINCE OF DARKNESS. BELOVED ASSOCIATE, THE Whigs are undone, and the ball is at OUR feet. You know all our plans, had Parliament not been prorogued. How well we prepared the whigs for the part assigned to them, I need not describe. The scene in the House of Commons must shew our friends the complete ascendancy that we had acquired, and the game which we had partly bullied, and partly wheedled the whigs to play. They really believed that this clamour about the Queen, and our endless and bold assumption of re gal authority and rights for her, would have had its effect, and that Parliament would have been kept sitting, to allow them to monopolize the distinction and power that may be acquired on the great topic, which we have now grasped. This would have been too much, and certainly not at all what we wished. But they acted their parts well. Tierney and Bennet were not surpassed by Hobhouse and Wilson ; and we have the satisfaction of thinking that this novel scene, which reminded me of the famous manner in which we browbeated and overawed these same whigs at York, must have completely alienated the confidence of every one whom we wished to separate from their ranks. It was indeed a master-stroke. I longed for your presence at our private meeting that night, when we quaffed large potations in honour of this convenient party. I put the success of this manœuvre against all my labours in the Black Dwarf. It has at once done for us more than all the errors of the whigs for the last century. It has shewn that their only restraint is FEAR, and that, for the object of place, they are willing to have it believed that they will go all lengths with us. But we have now ginn'd them irrecoverably. When the Parliament actually was prorogued, their consternation and discomfiture were most amusing. They were about to separate and retire to the coun try, believing that their chance was wholly lost. I understand that a peer who takes a great charge of the learned whigs in Edinburgh, announced to them the dismal change, and that the session met under very rueful and woe-begone aspect. Earl G. and others seemed to think that the ferment had done no good to any but us. They talked indeed of some county meetings-of strengthening and cementing the whig alliance—and of trying to make a practical improvement (as you say in your pulpits) of the crotchets, timidity, and indecision of some of their new allies in Parliament. But any decisive or vigorous measure they did not seem to contemplate. I struck in,-and after consulting some of those who fancy themselves our leaders, proposed to the whigs to follow up the blow by having throughout the country meetings upon our plan, for the change of ministers. I shewed them that, in truth, we had gained the triumph-not the Queen or the whigs: I enlarged upon our strength and our means of action, and fairly offered to put all the strength of radicalism in motion to turn out the ministers and put them in-if they would, to appearance, put themselves at our head, and work by our tools. I said that we would hold out, that for this object our friends must intermit their hatred, and overlook their difference with the whigs. And on the other hand, I stipulated that the whigs should, in all their journals, papers, and speeches, represent all parties as cordially united in this the first step to the object of all parties-that they should exhort |