.

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 bodily he could not read, and devised an ingenious plan for teaching Wellington how to read.