set before the reader the effect produced on the House of Commons by the
delivery of the passage above quoted, and which was shared, as the
intelligence was communicated, by the country at large. One thing was
plain, that the Minister, disdaining personal considerations of
unpopularity, had satisfied the nation that a desperate disease had been
detected, which required a desperate remedy. It was--it is, in vain to
disguise that an income-tax has many disgusting, and all but absolutely
intolerable, incidents and characteristics, and which were instantly
appreciated by all who heard or read of the proposal for its adoption,
and these topics were pounced upon by the late Ministers and their
supporters, with eager and desperate determination to make the most of
them. To give effect to their operations, they secured an immediate and
ample interval for exasperating popular feeling against Ministers and
their abominable proposition! But it was all in vain. There was a bluff
English frankness about the Minister that mightily pleased the country,
exciting a sympathy in every right-thinking Englishman. _Here was no
humbug of any sort_, no obtaining of money under false pretences. At
first hearing of it, honest John Bull staggered back several paces, with
a face rueful and aghast; buttoned up his pockets, and meditated
violence even; but, in a few moments, albeit with a certain sulkiness,
he came back, presently shook hands with the Minister, and getting
momentarily more satisfied of his honesty, and of the necessity of the
case, only hoped that a little breathing-time might be given him, and
that the thing might be done as quietly and genteelly as possible! To be
serious, however.

By whom, let us ask, had this Minister been brought into power? by whom
most furiously and unscrupulously opposed? The former were those on whom
he instantly imposed this very severe and harassing tax; the latter,
those whom he entirely exempted from it: the former, those who _could_,