"The Druid" as a Politician. 291 



majority to support him, my uncle, Mr. H. PL 

 Dixon, happened to be visiting his mother, 

 Mrs. Peter Dixon, at Holme Eden, near 

 Carlisle. It was the last General Election 

 which my uncle lived to see. He had been 

 born and brought up at Holme Eden, a 

 neighbourhood full of old associations which 

 greatly interested him, and where, I need 

 hardly add, he was much admired and re- 

 spected by his numerous friends. My father, 

 his eldest brother, had been dead about eleven 

 years, and I, then a youth of nineteen, was 

 heir to the Holme Eden estate, and residing 

 with my grandmother in order to learn the 

 business of spinning and manufacturing 

 cotton, carried on by the firm of Messrs. 

 Peter Dixon & Co., at Warwick Works, close 

 by. I well remember the earnest political 

 discussions and arguments between my uncle 

 and two of his brothers, Mr. John Dixon of 

 Manchester, and Captain (now General) 

 Dixon of the Madras Native Infantry, both 

 of whom were Conservatives. ' The Druid ' 

 was equally strong in his Liberal opinions, 

 and a great admirer of Mr. Gladstone. He 

 had a most wonderful faculty of remembering 



