less, pursued from a very early period of life. The occasion was
favourable to the attempt. The youthful mind of England had just recovered
from the inebriation of the great Conservative triumph of 1841, and was
beginning to inquire what, after all, they had conquered to preserve. It
was opportune, therefore, to show that Toryism was not a phrase, but a
fact; and that our political institutions were the embodiment of our
popular necessities. This the writer endeavoured to do without prejudice,
and to treat of events and characters of which he had some personal
experience, not altogether without the impartiality of the future.

It was not originally the intention of the writer to adopt the form of
fiction as the instrument to scatter his suggestions, but, after
reflection, he resolved to avail himself of a method which, in the temper
of the times, offered the best chance of influencing opinion.

In considering the Tory scheme, the author recognised in the CHURCH the
most powerful agent in the previous development of England, and the most
efficient means of that renovation of the national spirit at which he
aimed. The Church is a sacred corporation for the promulgation and
maintenance in Europe of certain Asian principles, which, although local
in their birth, are of divine origin, and of universal and eternal
application.

In asserting the paramount character of the ecclesiastical polity and the
majesty of the theocratic principle, it became necessary to ascend to the
origin of the Christian Church, and to meet in a spirit worthy of a
critical and comparatively enlightened age, the position of the
descendants of that race who were the founders of Christianity. The modern
Jews had long laboured under the odium and stigma of mediaeval
malevolence. In the dark ages, when history was unknown, the passions of