530 SIR W. FOLLETT AT EXETER. 



provided always, nevertheless, and so on a professional man. 

 Granted. We next proceed to inquire what are his pretensions as a 

 politician. First, how came he to be the chosen of the degraded 

 bondsmen of Exeter ? Ask the wretched muckworms of political cor- 

 ruption ask the municipal beasts of burden ask the bribing and the 

 bribed. But, answer make they none. Chopfallen, maddened to vulgar 

 and drunken despair, starvation staring them in the face, ruin at their 

 ragged elbows, they utter the illustrious name of Russell with an impre- 

 cation ; and stigmatize the venerable father of the Reform Bill with an 

 oath too foul, too slanderous, too malignant, to repeat. They find, at last, 

 poor misguided men! that even the name of Phillpotts will not convey to 

 their empty stomachs, and those of their wives and children, meat and 

 drink. And yet Phillpotts is a feeding and church-and-king name withal. 

 But what are Sir William Follett's pretensions ? They tell us, and truly tell 

 us, no doubt, that Sir William is a scholar and a gentleman. Are these, 

 then, the only necessary qualifications of an independent and practi- 

 cally useful member of parliament ? It is the more the pity the 

 more to be lamented, we think, that a man, who is held to be a gentle- 

 man, and considered a scholar, should be found in the ranks of the ene- 

 mies of the people, and a professional advocate of the Tribunes of the 

 Poor. We will not even advert to the set " beef-and-pudding" speech 

 of the destitute knight ; it is unworthy the head boy at Tiverton school. 

 Mr. Dewdney, the luminous grocer, or his son, who is the very Bom- 

 bastes Furioso of political somnambulism, and has travelled all over "Asha 

 Miner and Grace," would have beaten Sir William out and out at that 

 sort of work. Sir William Follett, let it be remembered, did not omit 

 to inform the drones that gathered round him on the late occasion, that 

 " he was beginning his political life." Perhaps a word in time may be 

 of use to Sir William ; at all events, if Sir William be both a scholar and 

 a gentleman, we need not remind him that a word to the wise, in the 

 olden time, and by the philosophers, was thought enough. The present 

 is the eleventh hour, Sir William, and no mistake. Time does not insult 

 the understanding or impose upon the credulity of good men ; in that 

 class, let us hope, Sir William, you presume to rank yourself : your po- 

 litical sins will reply to this proposition. Truth is no libel now. Even 

 the corrupted voters who sent you to parliament, are about to cast off 

 the works of darkness, and to put upon them, instead thereof, the armour 

 of political honesty, which will bear the constant glare of open and broad 

 daylight. 



The semi-official disguise in which you appeared before the political 

 world at Exeter, demands some further explanation of your character, as 

 well as an insight into your impotent and malevolent designs. You have 

 already, Sir William, obtained a popularity, that every advocate of national 

 freedom, and every friend to the sacred cause of civil and religious li- 

 berty, cannot but regret. But as you have won the " political 

 bays," you are justly considered to be deserving of all the odium 

 your prophetic popularity entails. You will now acquit us, Sir 

 William, of consequence, of any want of gentlemanlike or good feeling 

 towards you we repeat, we should be extremely sorry to see you and 

 your party separated ; in the name of courage, moral as well as physical, 

 contrive it so as to hang together we dislike divisions and sub-di- 



