Lord Jeffrey himself declared that it was the only
rudeness of which he ever saw Scott guilty in the course of a
life-long familiarity. And it is pleasant to know that he renewed his
cordiality with Lord Holland in later years, though there is no
evidence that he ever admitted that he had been in the wrong. But the
incident shows how very doubtful Sir Walter ought to have felt as to
the purity of his Conservatism. It is quite certain that the proposal
to abolish Tom Scott's office without compensation was not a reckless
experiment of a fundamental kind. It was a mere attempt at diminishing
the heavy burdens laid on the people for the advantage of a small
portion of the middle class, and yet Scott resented it with as much
display of selfish passion--considering his genuine nobility of
breeding--as that with which the rude working men of Jedburgh
afterwards resented his gallant protest against the Reform Bill, and,
later again, saluted the dauntless old man with the dastardly cry of
"Burk Sir Walter!" Judged truly, I think Sir Walter's conduct in
cutting Lord Holland "with as little remorse as an old pen," for
simply doing his duty in the House of Lords, was quite as ignoble in
him as the bullying and insolence of the democratic party in 1831,
when the dying lion made his last dash at what he regarded as the foes
of the Constitution.
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