"It is so fine a thing, that I only wish it had been prepared by Lord
John Russell instead of Sir Robert Peel!" On which, unless we are
mistaken, Lord John shrugged his shoulders in silence. His opposition to
the income-tax, on going into, and while the bill was in, committee, was
temperate, and even languid; and he stood in the dignified attitude
worthy of his ancient name, and of personal character, far aloof from
those who, throughout the session, pursued a line of conduct
unprecedented in parliamentary history, degrading to the House of
Commons, but possibly in keeping with all that might have been expected
from them. We are vastly mistaken if Lord John does not regard them with
secret scorn, and experience a shudder of disgust from any momentary
contact with them; and shall not be surprised if, during the ensuing
session, he should be at no particular pains to conceal the state of
his mind.

One circumstance highly honourable to the national character, in
relation to the income-tax, should not escape observation: that
comparatively little or no real opposition, certainly no clamorous
opposition, has been offered to the _principle_ of the tax, and the
policy of its imposition, by those on whom its pressure falls heaviest,
namely, the great capitalists and landed proprietors of the kingdom.
"The grasshopper," said Mr Burke, "fills the whole field with the noise
of its chirping, while the stately ox browses in silence." The clamour
against the income-tax comes mainly from those who are unscathed by it;
those who suffer most severely from it, suffer in silence. The inferior
machinery of the income-tax is unquestionably very far from attaining
that degree of perfection, which we had a right to look for from the
able and practised hands which framed it. The outcry raised, however,
against the income-tax on this score, particularly on the ground of the
heedlessness of subordinate functionaries, is subsiding. There is