.EX. 35.] HOME AND FOREIGN POLITICS. 69 



not in the least prepared, having brought myself to 

 consider your return at least as almost certain. Added 

 to Romilly's defeat, it is indeed a most mortifying event 

 to all those who care for the public concerns ; to me 

 for every reason, public and private. I look upon it 

 as ascertained beyond a question, that your failure is 

 owing entirely to the indiscretion of forcing Creevey 

 with you ; another instance, in addition to a thousand, 

 of that wrong-headed, impracticable want of judgment 

 which is so often exemplified in those who are the 

 most earnest friends of liberty, but which in no other 

 instance has been attended with such fatal and mis- 

 chievous consequences to the interests of that cause. 

 For after all that passed last summer, and still more 

 since you were induced to try Liverpool, it was of the 

 last importance to the popular and true Whig interests 

 that you should have been successful. And now my 

 anxiety is turned to your other prospects of a seat in 

 the new Parliament, which I trust are satisfactory. 

 Wareham, I see, is filled up, but perhaps not without 

 a condition in your favour. If that is out of the ques- 

 tion now, the Jockey appears to have innumerable seats ; 

 and he might gain immortal honour with the country 

 by appropriating two of them to Eomilly and you. I 

 shall be very impatient till I hear that some arrange- 

 ment, perfectly agreeable to yourself, is made for you. 

 Ever sincerely yours, FEA. HOKNER." 



Before the end of October I left Brougham, in order 

 that I might pay a visit to Whitbread and Lady Eliza- 

 beth before my November work in London began. On 

 the road I wrote as follows to Lord Grey : 



