REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 117 



with any talent, could have insured the election of 

 any person they pleased. When it was declared 

 that the statesman of the house of Bedford, Lord John 

 Eussell, was to be a candidate, in conjunction with 

 Mr. W. H. Whitbread, I made sure that a gentleman 

 without any pretensions at all for public life, like Mr. 

 Polhill, would most assuredly be beaten. In those days 

 my political principles were really much what they are 

 now : I was of the school of the old Whig, which is 

 now the school of many of Lord Derby's followers, 

 and professed much the same policy that Lord John 

 Kussell then entertained. Since then, parties have 

 changed, and many of those with whom I used to 

 think have left me, and, in my opinion, have played 

 a game of sheer expediency, which permits the players 

 to be pushed on, for the sake of power or rather of 

 office, further and faster than it is rio;ht or wise to gro. 

 Castles, bishops, and knights, in this political game of 

 chess, to the endangerinent of king and queen in the 

 long run, all must go down before the pawns ; and I 

 only wonder that the old board for the game is 

 not by some aspiring tradesman reversed, with mi- 

 niature Manchesters representing castles. Socialists 

 for bishops, cotton-spinners for knights, and for pawns, 

 the Lord help us ! sweeps on a May day, or semblances 

 of that well-known king of a part of the African 

 free coast, " Jack Robinson," who, when he receives 

 in state the captains of her Majesty's cruisers in sup- 

 pression of the slave trade, rigs himself out in a cocked 

 hat, feather, and broad sword, without a rag to cover 

 him. As I was only a master of hounds in Bedford- 

 shire, and not indigenous to the county, I resolved 

 not to interfere in the election in any way, not to 

 canvass my tradesmen, nor to permit my name to be 



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