upright political career, unfettered by mere party-ties. Flora applauded my resolution. I asked but for a few days’ delay, during which I would decisively settle the question with myself of whether or no I was fitted to address a public assembly. I committed to memory various passages from the speeches of the most celebrated worthies of the English Parliament, and endeavoured to deliver them in an oratorical manner, with Flora for my audience. Success crowned my attempts. Upon one occasion, indeed, when I had enunciated the conclusion of the late Mr. Canning’s address to the House of Commons upon the South American Colonies with unusual fervour, I so completely carried my audience with me, that the House was pleased to acknowledge my merit in a very gratifying manner. In point of fact, Mrs. J. started from her seat; and, throwing her arms round my neck (the proceeding was unparliamentary but pleasant), exclaimed, with tears in her eyes, “Oh, John, dear, how beautiful!—You’ll do!”
If the business was to be carried out at all, it must be undertaken in a business-like manner. Although I had lived very much out of the world, I was not so mere a simpleton as to suppose that a gentleman who was neither a great landlord, nor a railway contractor, nor a rising lawyer, nor connected by birth with any of the great families, could secure admission to Parliament for the first time without a little dexterous management. Bribery and corruption were, of course, out of the question; but still there were legitimate expenses, which in many instances mounted, as I had been informed, to a very considerable sum. Aunt Elizabeth’s legacy to Flora had put us in a position in which we need not shrink from any little effort of this kind; so I resolved to go down to the lobby of the House of Commons, and see if I could not find some one or more members of the House with whom I was personally acquainted, who would put me in the way of securing a seat.
A curious place it is, that lobby of the House of Commons, where you see so many men, whose names are uppermost in every man’s mouth, gossipping, and hanging about, like very ordinary mortals indeed. They are not, on the whole, beautiful to look at, but I am not aware that it is necessary for a British statesman to rival the personal grace of Adonis or the Apollo Belvedere. We, the mere outsiders, were pushed back and packed into corners by the assiduous policemen in attendance. It was, however, very gratifying to behold the simplicity with which an Honourable Member, who had been Prime Minister, and was now holding one of the most important offices in the State, munched his two-pennyworth of biscuits at the fruit-stall in the corner. It was also an imposing sight when Mr. Speaker with his little procession, passed through “to prayers.” Yes, that was the first Commoner in England, the foremost man, to my apprehension, of the human race. He passed me by without notice; however I trusted soon to entitle myself to his regard in a particular way.
At length I caught the eye of my friend, Philip Poldadek—a Cornish member—a very fierce and independent politician—who has carried terror into the breasts of successive Administrations by his fervid speeches upon the Waste Territory of the Hudson’s Bay Company—and the grievances of Dissenting Auctioneers. When I mentioned to him, in a confidential way, my intention of seeking for a seat in the House—with a withering sneer, he told me that I had better go home and hang myself at once, than have anything to do with that rotten and corrupt assembly. Phil had not hung himself—and indeed had contested his own seat at the last election, hotly enough.
My next effort was made with our own County Member, who warmly shook me by the hand—congratulated me on my intentions—informed me that seats were as plentiful as blackberries—and then disappeared into the body of the House. He had been returned for the county for forty years without opposition.
Was there no half-way house? Yes, surely that is my old class-fellow, Tom Rareton. I will try my fortune with him. He really did favour me with his attention—and finally said:—
“Well, if you have made up your mind, Jack, there’s no more to be said about it. I’ll tell you what to do—go and talk to the Sloth about it.” Gamma.
REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
Monarch-Adventurers.
the bonapartes.
If any seer in an early stage of human history had foreknown the regular order in which human society would grow and ripen, one of the last things that he would have looked for in the mirror of the future would have been a Monarch-Adventurer in Western Europe in the nineteenth century. He would have looked through the first period of society, when priesthoods engrossed all knowledge and all authority, and have there seen an ambitious priest here and there working his way up in his caste, till he reached the supreme rank of King and High Priest, as we see that personage painted in the tombs at Thebes, with a blue face and hands, the symbol of the sacerdotal class, and in his grasp the insignia of power over life, or the hair of a crowd of captives whose heads he is going to strike off. In such an age it was natural that the ablest man of the wisest class should become supreme, after having used his utmost efforts to be so.
The seer might well look next to the ensuing stage of society to find specimens of adventurer-kings. The military age was the very time for them to flourish—the military and the naval.
Conquest was then the chief means of greatness, not only when States were rising into importance, but even in the case of a Roman empire which awed the world. Even that empire, in its highest prosperity, was enriched and strengthened by annexing new territories and peoples, because the lands and towns were capable of improvement, and the people were sure to be benefited by their connection with a State which it was an honour to belong to. As long, therefore, as domestic interests were properly attended to, military successes won homage on all hands; and a great