PARTY POLITICS 95 



Duke of Bedford's property and interest in and around that 

 borough, the present Mr. Whitbread's, too, and the magnificent 

 public establishments and charities endowed by Mr. Whitbread's 

 father, I thought that the Bedford and Whitbread interest com- 

 bined, in favour of a man with any talent, could have ensured 

 the election of any person they pleased. When it was declared 

 that the statesman of the house of Bedford, Lord John Russell, 

 was to be a candidate, in conjunction with Mr. W. H. Whit- 

 bread, 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 pro- 

 fessed much the same policy that Lord John Russell 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, farther and faster than it is right or wise to go. Castles, 

 bishops, and knights, in this political game of chess, to the 

 endangerment 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 

 miniature 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 broadsword, without a rag to cover him. As I 

 was only a master of hounds in Bedfordshire, and not indigen- 

 ous 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 mixed up in the approaching struggle. At the eleventh 

 hour, and just before the close of the poll, word was brought 

 me that the canvassers of Mr. Polhill had made free use of my 



