61 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



as much thought nay, more of emigrating to the 

 wilds of America. 



e I would much rather have spent in Edinburgh the 

 few weeks I have to pass in this part of the country 

 than here ; but it was necessary, in order to acquire the 

 skill of the branch accountant, that I should remove to 

 a branch bank ; and as I take care never to quarrel with 

 necessity, I get on pretty well. On the evening of my 

 arrival, Mr Gillon, the Radical M.P., addressed his con- 

 stituents of Linlithgow in the Town-house. I attended, 

 for I was desirous to ascertain what I had long doubted, 

 whether Radicalism and a powerful intellect be compati- 

 ble, and regarded Gillon as one of the heads of the 

 party in Scotland. But the doubt is a doubt still. The 

 speech I heard was such an one as might, perhaps, pass 

 without remark in an inferior debating society ; but 

 there was a sad lack of taste about the parts in which the 

 speaker attempted to be fine, and a deplorable deficiency 

 of grasp when he strove to be sensible. His audience, 

 too, seemed miserably low, and, with all the good-will in 

 the world, had hardly sense enough to applaud. Yv 7 herever 

 I looked I saw only low, narrow foreheads, and half-open 

 mouths. What can such people know of the most diffi- 

 cult of all sciences politics ? You know my opinions 

 on the subject. I am a Whig, and not the less Whig- 

 gish now that the party are out (I found I could not quite 

 agree with them in all their measures when they were 

 in). But I see every day that men are not born equal ; 

 that "those who think must govern those who toil; " 

 and that those who toil frequently mistake the pressure 

 of the original curse for an effect of misgovernment. 

 Besides, I detest all quackery ; and the Radical, if he 

 be not altogether a blockhead, is of necessity a political 

 quack/ 



