stanchest advocate of democracy. No right-thinking man, who has witnessed a great political banquet, would wish to assist at another. It is a painful and degrading spectacle, from which all honest folks should say, in the language of the Litany, "Good Lord, deliver us!"

One objection that I have taken to these public political banquets certainly did not apply to the entertainment which was prepared for the Whig freeholders at Slockendrouth. The viands and the liquors were both plentiful and unexceptionable; indeed, any indication of economy in the commissariat would have been a perilous political blunder. The parchment gentlemen considered themselves entitled, on such occasions, to be supplied with every delicacy which could be gathered from land or sea, native or foreign, and they would have regarded it as a gross insult if any expense had been spared in the banquet set before them. The voter, whose native taste was in favour of sheep's-head broth, must needs have two helpings of turtle. Haunches of venison from the park of the Carrabas smoked upon the board, and, though infinitely inferior to four-year-old mutton, were in request on account of their rarity. Champagne and Burgundy were as plentiful as ditchwater; while Maraschino and Curaçoa, in straw-covered flasks, went the round of the table-whisky being regarded as too vulgar an article for the palates of the distinguished recipients. No flock of cormorants that ever assembled round the carcass of a stranded whale could have gorged themselves with more vigour and determination than did the worthy and patriotic retainers of the house of Carrabas; incessant was the clatter of knife and fork, boisterous the laughter, and fast and frequent the pledge. I was, I must needs acknowledge, somewhat excited by the novelty of the scene, so different from anything I had hitherto witnessed. I was very young, totally inexperienced in the ways of life, and for the first time I found myself treated as a man, and admitted into a company which, though sufficiently miscellaneous, included many individuals of

rank and station, with whose names I was already familiar through the medium of the Carrabas chartulary. There was the great mining proprietor, Gibson of Slag, of whom it was commonly reported that he was begotten in the bowels of the earth by his father, who followed the humble calling of a collier, but who rose to be a master and lessee, and by skill, industry, and a double share of shrewdness, had laid the foundation of a princely fortune. There was Alexander Phin, Esq. of Phinstown, famed all over the west for the amplitude of his hospitality and the excellence of his cheer, who began life as a simple snuff-merchant at the corner of the Saltmarket. Then there was Jamie Pitlearie, the noted wag and song-writer, whose facetiæ in those days kept Renfrewshire in a roar, and contributed not a little towards the compilation of that excellent jest-book and treasury of wit ycleped The Laird of Logan, which by many is held in even greater repute than the well-known work to which the honoured but apocryphal name of Joseph Miller is prefixed. These were some of the Dii minorum gentium; but we were not without a

sprinkling of the higher aristocracy, for besides the Honourable Sholto Linklater and Sir Gilbert Mounthooly, we had two peers' sons, a leash of baronets, an admiral, and a Highland laird, who considered himself incomparably the most important man in the assemblage. Other lairds of the Lowland breed we had in tolerable profusion, from the freeholder of ten thousand a-year, who visited at Carrabas Castle, down to the bonnet-laird of one hundred and fifty, who caroused with the gamekeeper of the Marquis. But the bulk of the party consisted of writers, accountants, and subordinates, pure paper fictions, as landless as Gregalach, and, in some things, quite as unscrupulous. Our chairman was the great Sir Gilbert, who did the honours with diplomatic suavity, duly drinking wine with those who sat below the salt, and dispensing his courtesies on all hands as beseemed a veteran intriguer.

So soon as the sacred rage of hunger was appeased, Sir Gilbert, after

cantering lightly through the ordinary toasts, for political reasons which at that time were pretty well understood, delivered himself of a couple of short orations as prefaces to the respective sentiments of "The Rights of the People-may they never be trampled down by the iron heel of tyranny!" and "The cause of civil and religious liberty all over the world." These toasts having been duly acknowledged by the editor of the Radical newspaper, who had been incarcerated on a charge of sedition, and by a gentleman who, anticipating the Mormon revelation, had taken unto himself the wife of another man, Sir Gilbert again rose, and with a graceful wave of his hand, and a premonitory "hem," ushered in the toast of the evening.

"Gentlemen," said he, "it is now my duty-I ought rather to say my high privilege-diverging from the more general sentiments of enlightened patriotic policy, which have already this evening been expressed in language more or less glowing and appropriate, and responded to by you with that cordial unanimity which shows how thoroughly your hearts are saturated—if I may be permitted to use the term-with adhesion to those liberal principles which the great Charles James Fox, whose private virtues and Spartan rectitude were only equalled by his public courage and rigid abnegation, vindicated on the scaffold- I mean those principles, liberal, as I said before, which the great Hampden, whose private virtues were only equalled by his public courage, vindicated on the scaffold-which the gallant Sydney consecrated with his blood on the field of battle-and which the great Charles James Fox, of whom it may truly be said, in the inspired language of the poet,

First to the lists the mighty Trojan

fixed aurora of the northern sky' (applause) to introduce to you a gentleman, in whom we may fondly hope, if hope can be said to exist, or rather coincide in combination with absolute certainty and most entire assurance-in whom we may fondly hope, I say, to find united all that tends to the culture of the intellect, to the development of the understanding, to the formation of the scholar, the gentleman, the senator, the patriot, and the statesman. In the Honourable Sholto Linklater(immense cheering, the whole company rising up)-in Sholto Linklater -to whom the prefix of 'honourable' is most appropriately applied, both on account of self-earned merit, and from ancient hereditary descent -in Sholto Linklater we recognise the champion of our cause, the vindicator of our independence, the patriotic barrier against the threatened encroachments of an unscrupulous and tyrannical faction, whose efforts, as sure as to-morrow's sun shall set in a panoply of golden clouds, will be crowned with unspeakable confusion and inexpiable disgrace. (Loud cheers.) In proposing this toast, gentlemen, one regret alone distils a drop of bitterness into the full cup of enthusiasm, confidence, and joy. I regret that the laws of the country, and the fundamental constitution of the realm, which, though reformers, it is our earnest wish to preserve intact in their entirety, sacred in their inviolability, and pure in their original complexion

I say, gentlemen, I regret that those laws and that constitution have rendered it inevitable that the presidency of this distinguished company, and the task of introducing to you our honourable and honoured candidate, should devolve upon an individual whose claims to your attention are, I am well aware, so limited and attenuated as my own. (Cries of No! no! and applause.) I can easily perceive, with the eye of fancy and imagination, what would be your delight, what would be your rapture, what would be your absolute delirium, if the chair which I now so unworthily occupy could be filled by that mirror of all that is great, gifted, and good, the Most Noble the Marquis of Carrabas. (Tremendous cheering.) Gen

tlemen, this is a topic which can only be touched by the pencil of discretion, when pointed with extremest delicacy. I approach it, I own, with superlative misgiving, lest, in the inspired language of the gifted Swan of Avon

'One of two bad things you should esteem me

Either a coward or a flatterer.'

For, gentlemen, I shall not disguise from you my conviction that I would justly incur the infamous imputation of being a coward, were I, through dread of misconstruction or fear of calumny, to suppress the utterance of my fixed, formed, and deliberate opinion, that Scotland cannot boast a nobler name than that of Carrabas (loud cheers); while I should equally be liable to the charge of flattery, were I to say that within the boundary of Scotland, from Coldstream to John o' Groats, from Peterhead to Portree, you could find a single individual comparable to the noble Marquis, who is also Lord-Lieutenant of the county, for high intellectual accomplishment, profound political wisdom, determined fixity of purpose, and bland urbanity of condescension, With these few remarks, gentlemen, wrung from me by the exigency of the moment, and the irresistible impulses of a heart which is sometimes too full for utterance, I withdraw from this subject, feeling that, like Phaeton-who, you may remember, attempted to drive the figurative horses of the sun-I may perhaps have aspired too high, and have become partially blinded by the brilliancy of the light upon which it was necessary to gaze. Reverting again to the more immediate subject of my toast, and anticipating your impatience to do honour to the selected candidate for the county, the stanch friend of the people, and the future Phoenix of our hopes, I propose, with no ordinary exultation, the health of the Honourable Sholto Linklater."

If my readers should deem me tedious for having thus minutely reported the speech of the rhetorical baronet, they will no doubt be relieved by the assurance that I have preserved no authentic record of the

VOL. LXXXVII.-NO. DXXXIII.

reply of the Honourable Sholto. Indeed, Edipus himself could hardly have resolved the incoherent gobbling of our accomplished candidate into a discourse; but that was of little consequence, as the great majority of the company seemed to care less for oratory than for the more substantial and exhilarating joys of the decanter. Then there were clamorous calls for a song, which were responded to by the wag of the West, Jamie Pitlearie, who favoured us with a ditty in honour of St Rollox, one of the tutelary guardians of Glasgow, attributing to that inspired divine most of the modern mechanical inventions. The greater part of this effort of genius, which, however, I think I have seen somewhere in print, has escaped from my memory, but the concluding verse was something like this

"He kenn'd fu' weel to wind and reel,
Invented cambric collars;

He was the first that ever durst
Singe muslin wi' het rollers.
He searched the land, and fand black-band,
Made het the bellows' noses,

And frae his ain lang chimney-tap
Made his apotheosis!

Chorus.

Then, brithers, join your sangs wi' mine-
Let's spend the nicht in frolics;
We'll never want a patron saunt,

Sae lang's we've gude St Rollox!" After this, oratory was at a discount. The admiral and the Highland laird, indeed, being under the impression that their dignity would be seriously compromised if they did not address the audience, successively got upon their legs and began to revile their political opponents; but by this time "the maut had fairly got aboon the meal," and the company testified their impatience by shuffling of the feet, imitations of chanticleer, and ironical applause, under cover of which the disappointed orators sat down. Even Sir Gilbert Mounthooly could no longer command attention. The eloquence of Ulysses was vain against the Circean influence of the liquor, which was rapidly transforming his companions into swine; and just as the Laird of Stoupiewa's was clearing his throat for a flood of melody, Bailie M'Chappie, faithful to his promise, carried me off to an upper apartment, where, in a few minutes, I was fast asleep.

Day dawned upon Slockendrouth as it dawns upon the quiet isles of the ocean, dissipating the clouds and drawing up the fogs, and calling men from needful slumber to the renewal of that labour which is their heritage. But the call to labour in that equivocal burgh was, on this occasion at least, unheeded; for although it contained many an artisan who could ill afford a holiday, work was out of the question during the dependence of that election, men's blood being heated to the very fever-point by political excitement and exasperation. It is difficult even for those who witnessed the extraordinary and disgraceful scenes of that momentous period, to recall them now with all their ferocity and license. They appear rather like the impressions of a distempered dream, than real memories of the past. As the period to which I refer is now somewhat remote, it is perhaps fitting that I should state, very briefly, the circumstances which gave far more than usual importance to this and other elections.

When, after the rash declaration of the Duke of Wellington, that no practical reform of the representation was required, the Whigs came into office, parties were very nearly balanced in the House of Commons. The second reading of the famous Bill introduced by Lord John Russell was carried only by a majority of one, and in a subsequent division upon the motion that the House should go into committee, the Whig Ministry were left in a minority of eight. This led to the dissolution of Parliament, a step which was literally forced upon William the Fourth by his Ministry; therefore the fate of the Bill depended upon the character and complexion of the new Parliament. The middle classes, especially in the towns, were of course strenuous supporters of the Bill as it stood, and dreaded lest any alteration should be made in its provisions. They were shrewd enough to perceive that it was calculated to give them political preponderaucy for the future, and

that consideration, independent of ulterior objects, was sufficient to insure their support. The working classes again, though still excluded from the franchise, had been so wrought upon by unscrupulous demagogues and hireling agitators, that they believed that parliamentary reform would immediately be followed by measures for doubling the rate of wages, and halving the price of provisions. There were no limits to the extravagance of expectation. "All young ladies," wrote Sydney Smith, himself a partisan of reform, “imagine that, as soon as this Bill is carried, they will be instantly married schoolboys believe that gerunds and supines will be abolished, and that currant tarts must ultimately come down in price; the corporal and sergeant are sure of double pay; bad poets expect a demand for their epics; and fools will be disappointed, as they always are."

Notwithstanding this unanimity among the classes that were not yet represented, it was questionable whether the existing electoral body would return to the new Parliament a majority of members pledged to support the Bill. No one doubted that some measure of reform would be carried; but measures are of divers capacities, and the ten-pounders having once obtained a glimpse of the bushel which exactly suited them, would not suffer it to be diminished. Hence arose the cry of "The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill," which resounded from every platform in the United Kingdom; and had the agitation been confined to mere expression of opinion, however strong, no one could have challenged it as unconstitutional. But it was by no means certain that the existing elec tors would defer to public opinion. They had certain privileges, if not rights, to maintain, and they showed symptoms of obstinacy; whereupon the character of the agitation was changed, and, after an interval of a century and a half, REVOLUTION again became rampant.

I use the term, God knows, in no