known as the Father of the Freemen, and who had acted warmly in my favour from the first, had been corrupted by my agents, and had in his turn corrupted all the freemen in the Borough. Daddy Dobbs, for so was this most respectable old gentleman affectionately named by his neighbours, was said to have received £1000 in a lump from my agents, and to have divided it amongst his fellows under the name of their “reg’lars.” I am sure if any one had witnessed his patriotic enthusiasm as he marched to the hustings at the head of his friends, just before the poll was closed, and turned the scale in my favour, he would never for a moment have suspected him of complicity with the baseness imputed. Why did he hang back to the last? How could such a lump as £1000 be extracted from the sixty and odd pounds of legitimate expenditure to which the auditor had certified? Mr. Lobby in consultation admitted the force of these arguments, and smiled contemptuously at the story; he had that degree of confidence in the better part of our nature that he was quite sure Mr. Dobbs would never have struck so harshly at the roots of morality—nor so basely tampered with the bulwarks of the constitution.
And now I come to the leading incident of my Parliamentary life, very nearly the last with which I shall venture to trouble any one who does me the honour of glancing at these fleeting records of my brief but earnest public career. Invitations had been forwarded to Flora and myself for a soirée which was to take place at Merryton House. Of course we went, as a matter of social courtesy, although, as I gave F. clearly to understand, I would not for a moment have it supposed that, by accepting this invitation, I was at all about to compromise my position as an Independent Member. Political affairs were in an inextricable tangle even at this early period of the Session, and I knew that the Back-Parlour and Merryton Combination was every day becoming more and more unacceptable to the country. Even before the Easter recess, it was obvious to all far-sighted politicians that a very few votes indeed would be sufficient to turn the scale, and give the Tarboy party another spell of power. It was not, then, to be wondered at, if social seductions were largely employed, to reward the steadfast, to attract the wavering, and to disarm the hostile members of the House. I have neither space nor inclination to give a description of Merryton House and its guests upon that memorable night. We were received with great but possibly with exaggerated courtesy by Lady M. That distinguished leader of the political world inquired affectionately for Flora’s sister, whom, as she was pleased to observe, she had so greatly admired last year at Cogsworth. Now Flora never had a sister, and there exist no friendly relations whatsoever between the ducal mansion of Cogsworth and Marigold Lodge. F., however, with great tact, answered, that when she had last heard from her sister that lady was as well as she had ever known her in her life. This assurance made Lady M. so happy. She then turned round to me with a sweet smile, and congratulated me upon the success of my last volume of beautiful poems; Lord M. had been so enchanted with them, that he would even steal an hour from sleep when he came back from the House, and devote it to the perusal of these exquisite effusions. Now, as it happens, I have never jingled two rhymes together in my life; but my cousin, Theophilus Jones, of Oriel, Oxon, has certainly brought ridicule upon our family name by publishing a parcel of songs and sonnets, together with a longer piece of nonsense, which he calls The Blighted Heart, and which I have no hesitation in pronouncing to be the most contemptible trash that was ever extracted from the injured inkstand of a paltry poetical scribe. What! I the author of The Blighted Heart, and Lord Merryton the enthusiastic admirer of that miserable trash! Flora, who knew my sentiments with regard to this poem, gave me an imploring glance. I restrained my emotion, and passed on.
We had been about an hour in the rooms. Merryton House was filled with the most beautiful, the most distinguished, the most all-that-sort-of-thing people in London. Flora and I made our way not without some little difficulty from room to room, and at last we reached one which seemed to be a kind of chapel-of-ease, or reserved sanctum. Oppressed by the heat and noise, we sought momentary refuge there. This chamber was a little darker than the others, and our eyes, dazzled by the glare of the lights outside, did not at first distinguish objects in this inner apartment. It seemed to me, however, and also—as she subsequently informed me—to Flora, that well-known voices fell upon and outraged our sense of hearing.
With Lord Merryton’s voice I was now familiar from my Parliamentary experience. Lady M. had done us the honour of addressing certain observations to us—but why Moppen? Why Mrs. Moppen, née Jane Slomax? Could we be mistaken?
When we recovered our powers of vision, this was what Flora and I saw. That beast Moppen, the very vulgarest dog in the House of Commons, was there in that innermost sanctum of the Forward-Backwards Party surrounded by Duchesses, and Lady M. was poisoning his ear with delicious flattery. She was telling him that such nature’s gentlemen as he were the real representatives of the people of England, and if she had a regret, it was that she foresaw that the inevitable tendency of his public career was towards the House of Peers. What would the people do without him? The fellow took it all in—he did, indeed. Lord Merryton meanwhile was playing at cat’s-cradle in the most seductive manner with Mrs. Moppen (Jenny Slomax), and asked her at what hour she rode in the Park.
Mrs. Moppen. “My Lord, hat heleven!”
Flora and I advanced into the room, determined to unmask the impostors. The Merrytons interchanged glances—they had comprehended the nature of the incident—and without hesitation threw the whole weight of their influence into the Moppen scale. This was clearly no longer any place for us. I endeavoured to convince Lord M. by the stately reserve of my manner that private considerations could not be suffered to influence my public career. I had partaken of his hospitality—Marigold Lodge was open to him in return. The floor of the House of Commons was neutral ground where none but public considerations