And there was no man in England more in earnest, more truly desirous of Reform, than Mr. Monk. It was his great political idea that political advantages should be extended to the people, whether the people clamoured for them or did not clamour for them,—even whether they desired them or did not desire them. "You do not ask a child whether he would like to learn his lesson," he would say. "At any rate, you do not wait till he cries for his book." When, therefore, men said to him that there was no earnestness in the cry for Reform, that the cry was a false cry, got up for factious purposes by
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