cry, know nothing of the crisis in which they are called on to
act, or of the nation which they aspire to govern. All their
opinions respecting this bill are founded on one great error.
They imagine that the public feeling concerning Reform is a mere
whim which sprang up suddenly out of nothing, and which will as
suddenly vanish into nothing. They, therefore, confidently
expect a reaction. They are always looking out for a reaction.
Everything that they see, or that they hear, they construe into a
sign of the approach of this reaction. They resemble the man in
Horace, who lies on the bank of the river, expecting that it will
every moment pass by and leave him a clear passage, not knowing
the depth and abundance of the fountain which feeds it, not
knowing that it flows, and will flow on for ever. They have
found out a hundred ingenious devices by which they deceive
themselves. Sometimes they tell us that the public feeling about
Reform was caused by the events which took place at Paris about
fourteen months ago; though every observant and impartial man
knows, that the excitement which the late French revolution
produced in England was not the cause but the effect of that
progress which liberal opinions had made amongst us. Sometimes
they tell us that we should not have been troubled with any
complaints on the subject of the Representation, if the House of
Commons had agreed to a certain motion, made in the session of
1830, for inquiry into the causes of the public distress. I
remember nothing about that motion, except that it gave rise to
the dullest debate ever known; and the country, I am firmly
convinced, cared not one straw about it. But is it not strange
that men of real ability can deceive themselves so grossly, as to
think that any change in the government of a foreign nation, or
the rejection of any single motion, however popular, could all at