Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/98

 and the streams, were heard to huzza, to cheer, and to yell at the Bristol banquet.

There is one difference. Sir Robert Napier has, in handsome terms, thanked the engineers for opening the roads for his beasts of burthen; whereas those for whom we cleared away the obstacles find a pleasure in heaping abuse and foul language upon Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright, and the rest of the Liberals who have been the pioneers of Reform. So that when Mr. Hardy goes to seek for re-election at Oxford, he may boast of having swept away the Irish clergy, and gain great applause by the abuse he will not fail to cast upon you and me as aiming at no less than the ruin of the Church, and a change in the Home Office!

Let us turn, before I conclude, to the state of the Empire, and observe how many favourable auspices combine for the settlement of this question. England's strength is England's opportunity.

If, then, we look to trade and finance, and perceive a Chancellor of the Exchequer exulting in the resources which Mr. Gladstone had derived from the creative power of his genius, and bequeathed to his successor, we may say, Miraturque novas frondes et non sua poma.

In regard to foreign affairs, while peace has been unbroken, Lord Stanley has not shrunk from maintaining, in the Luxemburg Convention, that old foreign policy which led to greatness and to fame, from the days of Lord Burleigh to those of Lord Palmerston; nor while he has shown every disposition