434 The Club Room. [APRIL 



of their bounty) swore furiously that they were plate; one hundred 

 pounds stock in the Greek loan, which I was forced to buy for the 

 honour of the cause, and of which I cannot get rid to this hour ; an 

 attack from that scowling dunderhead Palmerston, whenever I open 

 my mouth ; and the pleasure of seeing myself laughed at in every 

 newspaper of common reputation, as a broken down popularity- 

 hunter. 



Sir Robert. Oh, hang it : are you worse off there than every man 

 among us ? Whiggism is shelved : as much a dead letter as Lord Gren- 

 ville's speeches, or Tierney's memory ; it is on half pay, or worse, with 

 no pay at all : a d mn ble condition for man or cause to be in, as 

 some of us know to our cost ; down to the lees, sunk in the bottom of 

 the Slough of Despond ; and to be dipped in by no man who is not 

 ambitious of covering his name with mire eternal; down at a dis- 

 count that would beggar the whole dynasty of the Rothschilds ; and 

 sunk into a depth of public scorn, a palpable obscure, that would 

 blacken the visage of Beelzebub. It is gone ! like my legion my f 



Fickle. Heavens, how eloquent ! What a Southwark Cicero ! (Yawns, 

 and falls back in his chair.) 



Sheep (starting up to his assistance). Some water, there ! By Jupiter, 

 the baronet has got a locked jaw ! This comes of your confounded 

 habit, Ribbon, of rehearsing your borough harangues among gentlemen. 

 Fickle will die he gasps he changes colour he is speechless ! 



Friezland. Then it is all over with him. For when once Sir Francis 

 holds his tongue, you may rely on it, that he has lost the power of 

 talking. Well, Megrim, you must say something about him when 

 you move for the new writ, and we can put Blacking Hunt in his room. 



Megrim. I make a panegyric on Fickle ! Not a syllable. He was 

 the greatest bore that ever bored a party. Giddy as a goat, and con- 

 ceited as a peacock. An aristocrat by all the habits of his idle life ; a 

 democrat, by his craving for the breath of the rabble. As youth gave 

 him none of the generosity or manliness that belong to early years, so 

 age gave him none of its wisdom or dignity. With a large fortune, he 

 never made himself a public benefactor by any memorial of public be- 

 nevolence, by any zeal for the arts that embellish life, or any patronage 

 of the literature that does honour to a country. His whole career 

 was a miserable pursuit of a miserable ambition ; for this he began by 

 dabbling in the mob, and closed by humiliating himself to the very dust 

 of the minister's shoes. Commencing public life by stimulating the 

 rabble, and ending it by a ridiculous submission to power ; there he lies, 

 the emblem of a departed demagogue ! 



Shilelah. Ha, ha, ha ! Excellent ! You never did any thing better 

 in your life, Harry ! I knew you hated the fellow, by your excessive 

 civility to him ; but I did not think that you could have approfondid, 

 ns Alvanly says, the infinite littleness of his character. But, now, tell 

 the truth for once ;^ was not tips a part of your intended oration on 

 Tierney ? 



Rahely. By the by the world thought that poor Tierney was 

 rather scurvily treated. Not a syllable said about him ; yet .he was 

 the ultimus rebellium, the last of the Foxites. 



Blunderbuss. So much the better. They were a set of scoundrels, 

 with principle in their mouths and place in their hearts. Why, old 

 Charley himself had no more notion of public honour, than a ship's 

 purser has of giving up a perquisite, or a clerk in the Admiralty of 



