Amongst those who have been prodigal in abuse and defamation of
Lavengro, have been your modern Radicals, and particularly a set of
people who filled the country with noise against the King and
Queen, Wellington, and the Tories, in '32. About these people the
writer will presently have occasion to say a good deal, and also of
real Radicals. As, however, it may be supposed that he is one of
those who delight to play the sycophant to kings and queens, to
curry favour with Tories, and to bepraise Wellington, he begs leave
to state that such is not the case.
About kings and queens he has nothing to say; about Tories, simply
that he believes them to be a bad set; about Wellington, however,
it will be necessary for him to say a good deal, of mixed import,
as he will subsequently frequently have occasion to mention him in
connection with what he has to say about pseudo-Radicals.
CHAPTER X
Pseudo-Radicals.
About Wellington, then, he says, that he believes him at the
present day to be infinitely overrated. But there certainly was a
time when he was shamefully underrated. Now what time was that?
Why the time of pseudo-Radicalism, par excellence, from '20 to '32.
Oh, the abuse that was heaped on Wellington by those who traded in
Radical cant--your newspaper editors and review writers! and how he
was sneered at then by your Whigs, and how faintly supported he was
by your Tories, who were half ashamed of him; for your Tories,
though capital fellows as followers, when you want nobody to back
you, are the faintest creatures in the world when you cry in your
agony, "Come and help me!" Oh, assuredly Wellington was infamously
used at that time, especially by your traders in Radicalism, who
howled at and hooted him; said he had every vice--was no general--
was beaten at Waterloo--was a poltroon--moreover a poor illiterate
creature, who could scarcely read or write; nay, a principal
Radical paper said boldly he could not read, and devised an
ingenious plan for teaching Wellington how to read.
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