Government and Earl Grey

Government is not founded on property, taken merely as such, in the / abstract; it is founded on _unequal_ property; the inequality is an / essential term in the position. The phrases -- higher, middle, and lower / classes, with reference to this point of representation -- are delusive; no / such divisions as classes actually exist in society. There is an / indissoluble blending and interfusion of persons from top to bottom; and no / man can trace a line of separation through them, except such a confessedly / unmeaning and unjustifiable line of political empiricism as 10_l_. / householders. I cannot discover a ray of principle in the government plan, / -- not a hint of the effect of the change upon the balance of the estates of / the realm, -- not a remark on the nature of the constitution of England, and / the character of the property of so many millions of its inhabitants. Half / the wealth of this country is purely artificial, -- existing only in and on / the credit given to it by the integrity and honesty of the nation. This / property appears, in many instances, a heavy burthen to the numerical / majority of the people, and they believe that it causes all their distress: / and they are now to have the maintenance of this property committed to / their good faith -- the lamb to the wolves!

Necker, you remember, asked the people to come and help him against the / aristocracy. The people came fast enough at his bidding; but, somehow or / other, they would not go away again when they had done their work. I hope / Lord Grey will not see himself or his friends in the woeful case of the / conjuror, who, with infinite zeal and pains, called up the devils to do / something for him. They came at the word, thronging about him, grinning, / and howling, and dancing, and whisking their long tails in diabolic glee; / but when they asked him what he wanted of them, the poor wretch, frightened / out his of wits, could only stammer forth, -- "I pray you, my friends, be / gone down again! " At which the devils, with one voice, replied, --