It is a step in every public question when London
begins to move; and the pertinacity of the Anti-Corn-law associators has at length roused some signs of motion in the huge body. The address of the League to the Metropolis, which appears among our advertisements, remarks that in 1820 the country did not respond to the movement offered in the celebrated Free Trade Petition. But it was not London that then moved, but only some merchants of the City, who had imbibed the Free-trade philosophy. London, it is well known, never begins any movement : like Paris, it typifies the national character, but in an opposite way : the French capital hastens to conclusions, and begins every movement ; the English capital is slow to arrive at conclusions, and postpones movement as long as possible. Hence, when it is fairly in motion, its certainty as an index that the measure of the national will is full.
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