The Sun.
London, England, 1835-07-16 00:00:00

yield with a good grace to the growing opinion of the
country, and the frightful evidence of distress upon
which that opinion is founded.—Morning Herald. ; I

-"`Under the affected label of We can't afford it, a
second phial of vitriolic acid, though we must allow
much weakened in its effect, has been poured out upon
the " Aristocracy of England," by that busy nostrum-
dealer " Isaac Tomkins, gentleman." The purpose of
this person's former effusions could with some little
difficulty be guessed at--they were attacks on the no-
bility and gentry of Great Britain, in their characters,
political and social. They discovered some smartness,
and more spite. This, which is now before us, makes
manifest a certain progression in the author's mind,
for it is literally all spite, without even one particle of
that very frivolous accomplishment, vulgar though it
be, which is usually termed " smartness.' The greater
portion of what Mr. Isaac Tomkins putteth forth on
the present occasion, is in form a repetition of his pre-
vious doings—in its design it is a puff upon them.
However, there is here and there a direct proposal to
be met with, curious for its indication of the species of
animals to which Isaac Tomkins belongs. It is not
twelve months since this individual, who went at that
period by another name, announced repeatedly that too
much had already been done in the way of altering
our laws—and that thenceforth, (he then holding an
office for which he was as fit as would have been that
superannuated scaramouch Joe Grimaldi),—he, we
say—lsaac Tomkins—then assured the people of
England, that as too much had been done already, the
progress of change must be arrested. What does he
say now ? Why, he tells us that to complete our
emancipation from the Tory yoke, which it appears
has not yet been half effected, the qualification " must
be lowered," the establishments " must be lowered,"
all but the police, which must be prodigiously " en-
larged ;" the King's Court must be cut down, because
"we can't afford it." The overgrown salaries and all
unmerited pensions must be smashed, because " we
can't afford it ;" and in yielding our full assent to this
proposition, we must add, that if any quack or pre-
tender within the realm should happen to have twitched
out of the national store-room, and swallowed a pen-
sion of 5,0001. per annum for doing nothing but posi-
tive mischief, while keeping the whole world in hot
water, by a restless and eternal gabble about the good
he " meant to do," that said quack is precisely the
first subject whereupon to try the experiment of the
stomach-pump, and see to what extent he could be
forced to carry the process of disgorging. We have
no time to follow out the wanderings of our hero, but
will now set him on his legs before our readers, and let
him play his own tight-rope pranks for their amuse-
ment. The following passage relates to the Whig
Ministers, and a comfortable birth Mr. Tomkins has
assigned them :
" They mean well enough, what little they do mean. They
will grant reductions when there is no possibility of refusing
them. But all Ministers like a quiet life ; fear to quarrel
with the beards,' and the ' offices,' and the authorities %
tremble at the very name of a Court revolt, and therefore na-
turally hate movement of any kind beyond everything. The
present Ministers (from the peculiarity of their position, and
not from any original fault) are more than any that ever ex-
isted, under the influence of such feelings or such principles,
if we may so call that which annihilates all principle. They
have no power of doing as they like ; on the contrary, they
must do as everybody else likes. A threat, a word, a look
from the Tories will head them back, till they find that worse
looks (because accompanied with blows) from the friends of
liberty await them if they retreat further. So the pressure
from behind will drive them into something like reform, till the
angry looks and the big words of my lords the Peers, and my
lords the Bishops, and my masters, the worthy Baronets, and
other lords of the soil, become too awful to be resisted. Their
object is just to do enough to keep the Liberals from revolt,
without doing so much as to break entirely with the Tories;
just to give the people what they dare not withhold; and
when driven to reform by their support, then to go just as far
as they dare for their adversaries. The natural state of such
a Government is absolute inaction ; but, hard fate 1 even
that refuge is denied them. A body pulled opposition ways
may he torn to pieces; but that is not their position. No party
draws them to itself; they are in the state of a body pushed
or driven in opposite directions, which seeks safety in stand-
ing still. But this resource is not for them I They have a
powerful body of nominal supporters ready to crush them in
one instant, if they dare to stand still. Thus—unable to
move—and not permitted to rest, their existence is a scene of
buffettings and crossings, and all without any fault of theirs,
but owing to their false position in a half-liberal Parliament.
Accordingly, their most strenuous supporters have lately put
forward their unexampled weakness as their title to the pro-
tection of the people. It is a little strange, however, that men
so circumstanced should not perceive that protection and alle-
giance must be reciprocal ; that the people will only stand by
them if they keep to their principles ; that their only safety is
throwing themselves on the country ; and that of all the dan-
gers which can beset them, the greatest, the most fatal, is their
refusing to persevere in reforming courses.
" It does, therefore, seem, beyond all reasonable expec-
tation, that the Whig Ministry should ever set seriously
about relieving the country. They must have far stronger in-
citements applied--and they must be much stronger in Par.
liament, before we can hope from them any effectual retrench.
ments."

The next quotation contrasts mighty prettily with
die Tomkinsiana of August and September, 1834 ;
and must satisfy Lord Viscount Melbourne what an
irretrievable loss he has sustained by not bestowing
some of his legal patronage on so truly liberal and so
enlightened a political philosopher as Mr. Isaac Tom-
kins. In the mean time, as the Devil sometimes quotes
Scripture, so can Tomkins, when he forgets himself,
bolt out a good marketable truth :
" I fear much that the Liberal party—their leaders, cer.
tainiy—but even the bulk of the party, care little for Reforms,
except as the means of keeping themselves in and the Tories
out, and will give their ally, the people, only just as much as
is wanted fur that purpose ; will not quarrel with the Court,
will not face the Nobility, and, above all, will not give up any
share in the saddle.' When I see any measures carried
which really increase the people's comforts by giving them
cheap food, cheap drink, cheap Government, I shall retract my
opinion.
" But at the root of all these is the merciless and unmingled
Aristocracy of our Government—that Aristocracy, in the
spirit of which all our institutions are framed, all our concerns
administered, and all our Parliament-men bred.
" Only consider how this pernicious spirit works in every
quarter. A Minister, even a liberal and an honest one, asso-
ciates with the upper classes, and with them alone. In this
select circle he lives and moves and has his being. Born
and educated in this atmosphere, the odds are, that the
air he has already breathed should affect his constitution
and habits—that the medium he always sees through should
affect his vision. But suppose him to have made a vigorous
effort, (such a one as few of the Whig leaders are likely to
make, and certainly none of their Tory colleagues), be must do a
vast deal more, and suffer far greater pain than this violence
done to his own nature will have cost him, before he can do
any good, the least in tile world. He must face the frown,
the sneer, the horse-laugh of all he ever sees in society ; he
must be prepared for everything short of being shunned
by that refined society which I have been so much abused
by some for praising too highly, but which I really thought
I had treated with reasonable severity. He must at least
make up his mind for losing all the comforts of these circles,
but only from and after the day he quits his office, unless,
indeed, his powers of conversation are such that he is in-
dispensable, or his brilliancy in debate is such that no one
dares, for the fashion's sake, be without him. Conceive only
the appearance of a Liberal Minister (or Member of either
House) in one of those high circles, the evening of his bring-
ing in a Bill to take away the pensions of the nobility and
their ladies, or convert the costly royal palaces which they oc-
cupy into places of public use, or lop off some fourscore use-
less and expensive places which they hold ! Many a man had
rather march up to a battery, than face the clubs and the draw-
ing-rooms after proposing or supporting measures so Radi-
cal !' so wild I' so shocking to all delicacy !" so unworthy
an English gentleman !' And thus it will always be until some
portion of the people themselves sit in Parliament, or at least
until they choose men ready faithfully to represent them—men
who will do their duty, and insist upon a cheap Government,
without the least regard to the loss which the Crown may
suffer in its influence, and the nobility in their comforts. Till
then, the people of England have about as good a chance of
obtaining their just rights from our aristocratic assemblies at
Westminster, as the negroes had of getting theirs from assem-
blies of planters ; and for exactly the same reasons."— Times.
The King of England was yesterday threatened, in
the official gazette of his Ministers, with the loss of
his throne and with expulsion from these realms, if he
should not see fit to take the course prescribed by
his constitutional advisers, through the constitutional
medium of their own journal. The high crime and
misdemeanour for which the King and the Royal
Family of England are to be subjected to this punish-
ment is thus defined by the Ministerial gazette of
Tuesday last :—First Count—" That whereas only
some two or three of the Ministers have been invited
on rare occasions to the Royal table, as an exception
to the general rule of their exclusion." Second
Count—" That no Minister reported in the Court
Circular to have gone down to Windsor on public
business connected with his department, has ever been
admitted to a night's lodging in the Castle." The
above are the two first counts in the informa-
tion laid by the journal of his Majesty's Minis-
ters against his Majesty. But the indictment
mercifully proceeds to express (as a charitable
palliation for the heinous crimes charged against his