your Dr. Shrapnel seems to treat the traders as identical with the
aristocracy in opposition to his "people." The traders are the cursed
middlemen, bad friends of the "people," and infernally treacherous to the
nobles till money hoists them. It's they who pull down the country.
They hold up the nobles to the hatred of the democracy, and the democracy
to scare the nobles. One's when they want to swallow a privilege, and
the other's when they want to ring-fence their gains. How is it Shrapnel
doesn't expose the trick? He must see through it. I like that letter of
his. People is one of your Radical big words that burst at a query.
He can't mean Quince, and Bottom, and Starveling, Christopher Sly, Jack
Cade, Caliban, and poor old Hodge? No, no, Nevil. Our clowns are the
stupidest in Europe. They can't cook their meals. They can't spell;
they can scarcely speak. They haven't a jig in their legs. And I
believe they're losing their grin! They're nasty when their blood's up.
Shakespeare's Cade tells you what he thought of Radicalizing the people.
"And as for your mother, I 'll make her a duke"; that 's one of their
songs. The word people, in England, is a dyspeptic agitator's dream when
he falls nodding over the red chapter of French history. Who won the
great liberties for England? My book says, the nobles. And who made the
great stand later?--the squires. What have the middlemen done but bid
for the people they despise and fear, dishonour us abroad and make a hash
of us at home? Shrapnel sees that. Only he has got the word people in
his mouth. The people of England, my dear fellow, want heading. Since
the traders obtained power we have been a country on all fours. Of
course Shrapnel sees it: I say so. But talk to him and teach him where
to look for the rescue.'

Colonel Halkett said to Stukely: 'If you have had a clear idea in what
you have just spoken, my head's no place for it!'