THE PLEDGE-CANT. 



scions and impenetrable stupidity ? So far from having carried reform, 

 as they boast, their power, if they had had any, would have been directed 

 to impede it. Did they not, during its progress, with a malignant 

 readiness, invent and circulate the vilest suspicions of the sincerity of 

 the ministry are they not at this moment striving to defeat the vital 

 spirit of the bill ? 



The advocates of the pledge system are, in fact, neither more nor less 

 than a small knot of blockheads, eager to exhibit an " alacrity in 

 sinking " the reputation and character of those who may be dis- 

 posed to serve them in parliament, upon the absurd and mischievous 

 plea of a distrust of all professions and of all experience. 



They perhaps hold that when a man has once degraded himself by 

 the acceptance of pledges, he cannot well debase himself much further, 

 and that a de facto knave is a better instrument than an honest man open 

 to suspicion. The fly on the wheel was a diffident blue-bottle when 

 compared with the presumptuous and arrogant gnats who infest our 

 political atmosphere. Every body must be aware that the amateur po- 

 litician on a small scale, just beginning to swim, usually affects the 

 puddle equally shallow and dirty -and there strikes out and breasts 

 the wave with all the internal consciousness of a leviathan. Dryden has 

 said 



" Some who the depths of eloquence have found, 

 >loo:^ In that unnavigable stream were drown'd." 



but the Humane Society may make itself perfectly easy on our tyro's 

 account. He is in no danger of drowning. 



We speak, be it observed, of this party as a body. That there may 

 be a few honest, but misguided men, amongst them, we believe ; that 

 there are many who have adopted their vocation as one of the many re- 

 sults of variety, we know ; and for the rest, as they are so apt at dis- 

 covering unworthy motives in others, they will not be offended or 

 surprised if we presume to think them utterly destitute both of common 

 honesty and common sense. 



It is indeed a miserable party 3 which, out of so " remarkable a body 

 of men," can furnish no more powerful writer than a Junius Redivivus,* 

 and can contrive no more plausible expedient for popular effect than the 

 invention of the pledge-cant. 



* Junius Redivivus, Ave perceive, by a letter in the Examiner, is wrath with us 

 because we thought it not a little presumptuous in him to take a name to which he 

 himself did not eVen advance a title. He, however, explains his reason for such 

 assumption, by stating that he has adopted that signature in order that it may 

 serve as a guarantee of his political integrity. Fudge ! " I will introduce myself 

 in another man's name that my identity .may be clearly established. I will call 

 myself the Colossus of Rhodes that the world may be assured that I mean really 

 to step across this puddle !" 



When a rushlight at a general illumination sports Sol Redivivus, and seems dis- 

 posed to burn very brilliantly and with much steadiness, we smile at the diminutive 

 dip ; but whether it carry on its inflammable functions with discretion, or blaze 

 away in total disregard of its small, and therefore precious, tallow, can be, we 

 think, of no importance to any one but the old woman who may have set it up in its 

 high place, like a a particular star," at the garret window. 



