most critical moment of the performance. No sooner did her eyes meet those of the stout lady, than there was an exclamation upon either side of
“Flora!”
“Jane!”
They had known each other, as it appeared, in former years; and, as I afterwards was informed, Jane Slomax—the daughter of a distiller of considerable eminence—had intermarried with Mr. Thomas Moppen, the member for one of the metropolitan boroughs—I decline to say which. As I wish to pass over this portion of my story as speedily as possible, I will briefly mention that the political circumstances of the day were such that Mr. M.’s vote in favour of Government upon a particular division was a point which must be won at all hazards. There was no particular job on which Mr. M. could be obliged, for the constituency which he represented was so large that if he got a place for one of his supporters, he was sure to disoblige a thousand others. There was no little railway business—no anything. At last the Secretary to the Treasury—a very bland and vigilant gentleman—discovered that there was a Mrs. M.—that Mrs. M. had been presented at Court with all becoming splendour of diamonds and feathers, but that Mrs. M. had never received an invitation to a Court Ball. One was duly forwarded, and it was very remarkable to observe that on the very evening of the day when that invitation had been received at Juniper Hall, Clapham Rise, a speech which Mr. Moppen had originally set in five sharps, and which was intended by that gentleman as a root and branch attack upon the Government for their profligate expenditure of public money on military preparations, was toned down to five flats. Mr. Moppen, on leaving home, had informed his consort that the blandishments of a luxurious Court were entirely thrown away upon him, and that rather than betray his country, he was prepared to die in his place in the House of Commons: but all I know is, that his speech did give great satisfaction to the Treasury Bench. He was answered by the Secretary of War—who had been observed during the course of Mr. Moppen’s most telling periods to be in close consultation with Viscount Merryton—with great courtesy, but at the same time with much firmness.
The Right Honourable Gentlemen “was free to acknowledge that Mr. Moppen had done no more than his duty in bringing the subject before the attention of the House; but, at the same time, in the critical state of European politics—a subject which he declined to discuss, as it fell rather within the province of his Right Honourable Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,—he knew the extent of his responsibilities to his own conscience, to his Sovereign, and to his country. The Right Honourable Gentleman was fully aware of the formidable character of the Honourable Member’s motion, but he submitted it with great deference to his own candour and public spirit—whether it was just, whether it was fair, whether it was—he would say, in a public sense—honourable, to endeavour to overthrow a young Administration by a side-wind. Let the Honourable Gentleman provoke a substantive vote of want of confidence, and Her Majesty’s confidential advisers were quite prepared to meet him on that broad and intelligible battle-field.”
Mr. Moppen was thoroughly astonished, as well he might be, at this shower-bath of complimentary rhetoric; for hitherto the only notice he had received from the Treasury Bench had been of a sarcastic and sneering character, indeed the junior members of the Administration had not shrunk from entertaining the House with chaste imitations of Mr. Moppen’s peculiar style of elocution, in which a certain coquetry with the aspirate formed a very leading feature. Not so long since, Lord Merryton had, in his own proper person, condescended to answer one of Mr. Moppen’s speeches, which was not so much distinguished for historical accuracy as for patriotic zeal. The Honourable Member, speaking under a very pardonable confusion of ideas, had suggested to the House that a certain proposition with reference to the Ionian Parliament bore a very close resemblance to the tyrannical conduct of the First Charles, when that misguided monarch came down to the House for the purpose of arresting the Seven Bishops, and the Right Reverend Prelates were compelled to fly for refuge to the City of London. The Metropolitan Members of that day did their duty, as the Metropolitan Members of this day were prepared to perform theirs. How Lord Merryton did get up in his place, and poke fun at the unfortunate Moppen! How that Noble Lord did hum and haw, and keep the House waiting for the inevitable joke, which was lurking deep down in his malicious eye. What a picture he drew of Religion secure under the ægis of the Lord Mayor and Corporation! How he invented for the occasion a Civic Banquet, with the persecuted Bishops as the guests, and assumed that the good old air of Domine dirige nos! was sung upon that memorable occasion as a solo by the City Remembrancer. Now all was changed—not a syllable had been hinted about the hs absent without leave—Mr. M. had been answered by a Cabinet Minister—it had been vaguely suggested that the fate of the Government hung upon his decision—he was lifted at once into the proud position of leader of a section. Mr. M. withrew his motion, and the next day had 100,000 copies of his Great Speech printed off, and distributed amongst his constituents—the balance of the stock being sold off at the cheap rate of one penny.
So it came to pass that Mrs. Moppen was to go to the Queen’s Ball, and the great M. himself was to be exposed to the blandishments of the luxurious Court. M. promised himself, however, that if the Prince Consort upon that occasion button-holed him, or got him up in a corner with two glasses and a bottle of champagne, he would tell him a bit of his mind; more especially upon the subject of the relations between the cabinet of St. James’s and the German Confederation. Upon this point Moppen was inexorable—and he doubted not that he would be able to put the point in such a way to H.R.H. that that illustrious individual would from that moment forward be content to throw in his lot with the British Lion—without looking back to the flesh-pots of Germany.
