Her old reign was supported by
fictitious credit--by seeming prosperity--and, more than all, by the
ignorance of the people. Well, the bills drawn by Toryism (at a long date
we grant) have now to be paid--paper is to be turned into Bank gold.
Arithmetic is a great teacher, and, with the taxman's ink horn at his
button-hole, gives at every door lessons that sink into the heart of the
scholar. Public opinion, which, in the good old days "when George the
Third was king," was little more than an abstraction--a thing talked of,
not acknowledged--is now a tangible presence. The said public opinion is
now formed of hundreds of thousands whose existence, save in the books of
the Exchequer, was scarcely admitted by any reigning minister. Sir ROBERT
PEEL has now to give in his reckoning to the hard-heads of Manchester, of
Birmingham, of Leeds--he must pass his books with them, and tens of
thousands of their scholars scattered throughout the kingdom; or, three
months after the next meeting of Parliament, he is nought.
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