1830.] The Club Room. 423 



He busies himself in popular education ; the whole thriving scheme, in 

 which a whiggish eye would have seen the happiest prospect of those 

 " shocks that kingdoms are heirs to," broke down at once. He found 

 the rabble willing to be as wise, and a great deal more impudent than 

 their masters. The thing was growing up in the most turbulent pros- 

 perity ; but he thrust forward his ill-omened visage, and the very cheer of 

 his voice was the night-raven's croak to rabble supremacy. Where are 

 the mechanics' institutions now ? where is sunk the glory of the Birk- 

 becks, the Loches, the ingenious regenerators of mankind at two-pence 

 a thousand ? Megrim can best tell, for he gave the death-blow. Where 

 too his university, that new Temple of Reason, the Gower Street 

 Pantheon, where every name was worshipped but one ; the Babel that 

 was to awe the skies, the grand-junction Acropolis, where the Minerva 

 of the mob was to pour out from the skirts of her garments an annual 

 flood of muddy metaphysics into every channel of the national mind ; 

 where mathematics were to clothe the unbreeched in the robes of legis- 

 lation : where political economy was to teach the pauper to manage the 

 property of the state ; where the Edinburgh Review was to be the Pan- 

 dect, and broad Scotch the only language permitted in the House. 

 Megrim unwittingly performed the public service on that occasion ; he 

 took the management, promised to raise the tree to the clouds, and 

 while he was flourishing his axe round the sprays and branches, it 

 slipped from his hand, and cut the root in twain. 



So much for the luck of the most disastrous slave of ambition that 

 ever perplexed debate, or spun cobwebs to catch popular applause. 

 Whiggism wanted but this man to sink it in utter ruin. The nature of 

 its leaders for the last few years was an irresistible evidence of its decay. 

 It is only when party is at the last gasp, that it consents to rank itself 

 under rashness and impotence. The broken regiment scatters from the 

 field under the command of a corporal ; the dying man flies to the des- 

 perate resources of the charlatan ; the drowning man catches at a straw. 

 A faction never knows how to perish with dignity ; and the fooleries of 

 its expiring hours, are the natural atonement for the mischiefs of its 

 day of vigour. 



Lord Friedand. Yet Megrim is clever. I admit his infinite ill-luck, 

 intractable self-opinion, and matchless contempt for every man's sense 

 but his own; but he can talk, which is more than nine-tenths of the 

 clamorous boobies that come to our benches for their education, can do, 

 for their souls. But here he comes ; let him answer for himself. 



Enter Megrim ; he flings his hat on one chair, his cloak on another, and 

 himself into a third, in a state of exhaustion. 



Lord Friezland. (aside to Fickle.) He brings some new specimen of 

 his luck. A six hours' speech, perhaps, with a division of one and the 

 teller for his motion. 



Fickle (aside). He would make an excellent sitter for any artist who 

 wanted to sketch the man who "drew Priam's curtain at the dead of 

 night " what's the news, Megrim ? 



Megrim (starting from a reverie}. What good news can you expect ? 

 Can you raise men out of nothing, mind out of mile-stones ? Confound 

 their clodpole brains ! The whole affair is we have had another rub 

 to-night, and were beaten horse and foot. Whiggism is no more. I 

 shall order home a new blue jacket to-morrow, with my number on the 

 cipe,and apply to the police-colonel for orders, when and where to do duty. 



