in the earliest practical result; to "rest and be thankful." His faults,
as well as his virtues, make him anti-revolutionary. He is generally too
dull to take in a great idea; and if he does take it in, often too
selfish to apply it to any interest save his own. But now and then, when
the sense of actual injury forces upon him a great idea, like that of
Free-trade or of Parliamentary Reform, he is indomitable, however slow
and patient, in translating his thought into fact: and they will not be
wise statesmen who resist his dogged determination. If at this moment he
demands an extension of the suffrage eagerly and even violently, the wise
statesman will give at once, gracefully and generously, what the
Englishman will certainly obtain one day, if he has set his mind upon it.
If, on the other hand, he asks for it calmly, then the wise statesman
(instead of mistaking English reticence for apathy) will listen to his
wishes all the more readily; seeing in the moderation of the demand, the
best possible guarantee for moderation in the use of the thing demanded.

And, be it always remembered, that in introducing these men into the
"balance of the Constitution," we introduce no unknown quantity.
Statesmen ought to know them, if they know themselves; to judge what the
working man would do by what they do themselves. He who imputes virtues
to his own class imputes them also to the labouring class. He who
imputes vices to the labouring class, imputes them to his own class. For
both are not only of the same flesh and blood, but, what is infinitely
more important, of the same spirit; of the same race; in innumerable
cases, of the same ancestors. For centuries past the most able of these
men have been working upwards into the middle class, and through it,
often, to the highest dignities, and the highest family connections; and
the whole nation knows how they have comported themselves therein. And,
by a reverse process (of which the physiognomist and genealogist can give
abundant proof), the weaker members of that class which was dominant