( 529 ) 



SIR WILLIAM FOLLETT'S AFFAIR, AT EXETER. 



EATING and drinking are the besetting sins of the thoroughly beaten 

 Tories the falsely-so-called " Tribunes of the Poor." There is 

 nothing to be done nothing to be considered no one popular subject 

 to be entertained, that pertains to the general good or even a propo- 

 sition made, without a " glorious meal," in the absence of meat and 

 drink ; in short, a " crammed stomach and a bottle of wine," and 

 further, by way of medicine, lots of grog, " cold without," &c. What 

 a pity it is that Sir William, who feels very much the loss of his 

 official consequence, et cetera, did not turn over a new leaf of his 

 " clap-trappery," and declare to the constituency of Exeter, that 

 the time had arrived when a "radical change" was called for in 

 the animal as well as the political system'. "Out upon such a 

 representative," would have been the instant and vociferous outcry of 

 the parson-ridden voters of Exeter and the imposturised county of 

 Devon. Bishop Phillpotts would have staggered forth from his 

 palace of church pestilent besottedness and political privacy : John 

 Baron Rolle would have galloped on Peter Pindar's Pegasus to town 

 in the twinkling of Captain Cooke's staff of office; Mr. Parker, M. P., 

 would speedily have been on the sacred spot of his pestiferous ascend- 

 ancy ; the vulgar and unlettered formularies of Tory corruption and 

 intolerant municipal abuses, at Barnstaple, the degraded borough capi- 

 tal of North Devon, would have flown to the meat and drink Pharos:- in 

 short, " all hands" would be on the qui vive, and sooner or later in the 

 arena, to join in the " great denunciation " that would in such a case 

 indisputably have been pronounced by the bribing and the bribed, on 

 Sir William Follett. But Sir William Follett, Knight, knows on which 

 side of his bread there is likely to be spread the most butter. He knows, 

 too, that Devonshire butter is not only the sweetest, but likely to keep ,- 

 Sir William has a penchant, too, for clotted cream. Now, we need not 

 say, that it is from this very "clotted cream" that the butter, our trusty 

 Knight so much extols, is made. Captain Cooke will explain the re- 

 mainder to the entire satisfaction of Sir William and his JUNTA of cor- 

 ruptionists. Thus much by way of preliminary melancholy. Now we 

 shall touch a chord which, to say the least of it, may vibrate upon 

 some ears political, if not touch hearts most true and patriotic. Let us first 

 inquire, Who is Sir William Follett ? politically, we mean. Does he 

 differ from his species in any remarkable degree ? Is he not what is to 

 use an every- day distinction a professional man ? Will Sir William 

 Follett himself, who has taken upon him all the fading and dingy 

 honours of out-and-out Toryism stand before the " PEOPLE," and dis- 

 claim that peculiar distinction? No ! it were next to impossible he 

 should do so. Sir Willam Follett, then, is, "to all intents and purposes," 



M. M. 12. 3U 



