36 Saddle and Sirloin. 



Graham, Lady Vane, and Mrs. Johnson of Walton 

 House were partners in a quadrille with Sir James, 

 Sir Frederick Vane, Mr. Johnson, and Captain 

 Campbell.* 



As years went on, there was sterner work than this 

 for Sir James to do both in Downing-street and St. 

 Stephens, and Cumberland might well be proud of her 

 " Bright Sword of the Border." No country had ever 

 sent, not once, but twice, such a pair of home-breds as 

 44 Sir Jamie" and " Willie Blamire" as their members. 

 The one had mastered the great problem of Tithe and 

 Enclosure, perhaps, with the exception of the Irish 

 Church, the most delicate and difficult that has per- 

 plexed the century ; and the other was for nearly 

 thirty years " a potent voice of Parliament," and the 

 friend of Sir Robert Peel. There was a long severance, 

 it is true, between him and his county, but " The 

 wanderer," to use his own words, " came home at 

 last." After fifteen years of political exile, he showed 

 himself once more at the windows of the Coffee 

 House, and then came that carefully-studied combina- 

 tion of close reasoning, playful local illustration, and 

 magnificent irony, which gave his speeches such a 

 peculiar edge, and which again bore all down before 

 it both on the hustings and at the poll. Every shaft 

 told, and it went ill with the man who tried to 

 parry his chaff, upon fingers and toes in potatoes, 

 or any other topic. Two points in his political 

 life were especially marked, to wit, his wish to play 

 a strong second rather than to lead, and his utter 

 indifference, if he believed himself to be in the right, 

 how much he might cut public opinion against the 

 grain. The one might indicate lack of nerve, but 

 the other proved its possession in the very highest 

 degree. 



* Our informant, who was a looker-on, is sure as to seven out of 

 the eight. 



