64 AN M.P. 



contrived to insinuate himself into the favour of Richard 

 Brinsley Sheridan, Esq., a thing not very difficult with 

 men in affluent circumstances and armed with a little 

 self-importance. Accompanying him in his frequent 

 electioneering expeditions, he became known to the 

 electors ; and, imbibing a fatal ambition, upon the death 

 of that brilliant but eccentric genius, he offered himself, 

 as a candidate for the favours of the shoemakers of 

 Stafford ; and, after some few vain attempts, succeeded in 

 being returned for that intellectual constituency. Upon 

 one of these occasions, when he had to exhibit himself on 

 the hustings, his speech was received with hisses and 

 vociferations of "Off! Off! " by his opponents. Then a 

 Avag in the crowd, a friend of his own, afterwards well- 

 knoAvn to the author, slily, audibly, hallooed out, " Off 

 with his head — so much for BooJcing 'em ! " which elicited 

 roars of laughter from both friends and foes. Poor man ! 

 he spent the greater part of his life in aping his superiors ; 

 and when he at length attained the great object of his 

 ambition, by being, as he thought, seated beside them in 

 the great council of the nation, death put a stop to all 

 further aspirations, or we do not knoAv to what office the 

 conspicuous talent of " The frothy gentleman of Leather- 

 head," as he was most aptly termed, would have raised him. 

 Widely different was the career as well as the attain- 

 ments of another person who issued from the same 

 establishment, and afterwards rose first to civic, then to 

 parliamentary honours.^ Downright industry and a 

 systematic application to business, in which the 

 female members of the family were called to assist, 

 William T. Chaplin, Esq., late M.P. for Salisbury. 



