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    faithful , you have the House of Commons at your back ; but alas ! Lord Spencer is dead ! You cannot doubt my attachment to Reform , but of course it depended on the life of Lord Spencer . You have lost a Chancellor of the Exchequer ; you say you can supply his place ;—but who can supply the place of the late Lord Spencer ? You have lost a leader of the House of Commons ; you have found another on whom you can depend ; but , my Lord , where shall we find another Earl Spencer ,

    so aged and so important as the Earl who is gone ! The life of tlie government , you are perfectly aware , was an annuity on the life of this unfortunate nobleman—he was only seventy-six ! My love of liberal men and liberal measures is exceeding , and it was bound by the strongest tie , —the life of the late Lord Spencer . How can my people want Reform , now Lord Spencer is dead ? How can I support reforming ministers , when Lord Spencer has ceased to be ? The Duke of

    Wellington , you must be perfectly aware , is the only man to govern the country , which has just lost the owner of so fine a library and so large an estate . It is true that his Grace could not govern it before , but then Lord Spencer was in the way ! The untimely decease of that nobleman has altered the whole face of affairs . The people were not quite contented with the Whigs , because they did not go far enough ; but then

    —Lord Spencer was alive ! The people now will be satisfied with the Tories , because they do not go so far , for—Lord Spencer is dead ! A Tory ministry is necessary , it cannot get on without a Tory parliament ; and a Tory parliament cannot be chosen without a Tory people . But ministry , parliament , and people , what can they be but Tory , after so awful a dispensation of Providence as the death of the Earl of Spencer ? My Lord , excuse my tears , and do me the favour to take this letter to the Duke of Wellington /* ' '

    If any thing could bring hereditary kingship into immediate and irremediable disgrace with the people of this country , it would be such a personal , uncalled for , arbitrary , yet constitutional interposition as this . Popular discussion has hitherto steered clear of the regal branch of our Government . The reig-ning

    sovereign has enjoyed much of cheaply purchased popularity . Even his refusal to create peers when the Grey administration and the Reform Bill were ousted together by the Lords , was not exposed to harsh construction . But it is not wise to force the people to moot the question of the utility of the royal prerogative . It has been hitherto regarded , even by far-going radicals , as a topic which < did not press . ' Why make it press ?

    The " Quarterly Review / published while we are writing , affirms that the late Cabinet was broken up by the question of Church reform , and that a minority of that Cabinet declared they would resign if measures were proposed so strong as the majorit y thought essential to their facing Parliament with safety . Perhaps this

    statement is concocted to disgrace the late Government ( its Premier , and some of its members not specified ) with reformers and the country . . If not , it shows very plainly what we have to expect . The Whigs could not unite in carrying so much Church reform as was necessary to insure them the support of the Com-

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    824 The Wellington Dictatorship .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1834, page 824, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2640/page/6/