6'2() The Baron Court of Little Brought-in. 



Their most disinterested devotion to the public good carries them 

 to even much greater lengths than this. There is generally no 

 greater sacrifice that a very wise man can make than speaking non- 

 sense ; and so devoted are they to their darling object that not one 

 of them cares a single straw how much or how great nonsense he 

 shall speak, provided it is spoken, as all their speeches are sure to 

 be spoken, for the public good. Nay, so thoroughly devoted are 

 they to this object, that in saying they promote it, they do not care 

 though they make themselves appear the greatest fools upon earth. 

 But though they take these great liberties with their own under- 

 standings, they would be very much offended if any body else were 

 to take the same liberty with them ; and we confess that to do so 

 would be very wicked, because men who devote themselves, skin 

 and bone, to the public good, ought to be allowed to do it in any 

 way that they themselves think best; and if it be for the public good 

 that black should be white and white black at some times, there is 

 really no reason why it should not be generally admitted to be so. 



All, in fact, that the members of either chamber say or do, is 

 always avowedly said or done for the public good, or for the ad- 

 vancement or the promotion of it. But this same public good must 

 be a most stubborn and wayward thing ; for, though they have been,, 

 time out of mind, labouring to advance it, it is always in exactly the 

 same place where it was at the first. Then as to its promotion, 

 though often spoken about, it somehow or other never takes place j 

 for, whoever may happen to be in office, the public good never has 

 the slightest chance of a government situation; and as for making it 

 a bishop, or even a dean, the thing is altogether out of the ques- 

 tion ; for the public good never matriculated or even ate its terms 

 at Oxford or^Cambridge, and thus it is not at all qualified to take 

 orders. 



Notwithstanding that the public good seems thus to be in itself 

 a perfect fixture, which all their labour can neither advance nor 

 promote, yet that does not make them slacken a bit from working 

 at it. They are always ready to listen to any story which any body 

 may tell them, whether it be true or false ; and hardly a thing can 

 be done in any one part of the three manors without their having 

 "a great deal to say" about it. Then they claim a privilege of 

 understanding every thing better than any body else ; and so they 

 \yill always have it done their way. If it is but laying a plank across 

 the gutter, or making a wheelbarrow road between the potatoe- 

 house and the pig-stye, they will be as much in earnest, and talk as 

 wisely about it, as if they were settling the affairs of the nation. Of 

 late years they have taken the notion of encouraging the making of 

 great gaps and gashes in the earth, no matter at how much expense, 

 or who bears it, so that the gashes are big and ugly enough, and the 

 rules of the Baron Court are duly observed, the gist of which 

 rules is, that as much money shall be paid down as shall enable the 

 hangers-on about the court to get their fees for persuading the court 

 to do what is wished to be done ; and when the fees are once paid, 

 the parties may do any thing they like in the matter, or nothing at 

 fill, if they like that better. There never were so many fees paid, 



