Shamboro', and tell them to get ready for a stand-up fight with two a side.' While the wire-pullers in Pall Mall were thus contemptuously pre-arranging the political destinies of Shamboro', they took very small account of one individual who, though the most insignificant marionette in Captain Heaviweight's programme, was nevertheless destined to bear no unimportant part in the coming struggle. The second man,' who was to act as waste-paper-basket for Dibbs's stray votes, had probably not one single aspiration in common with his colleague. Both were, indeed, according to the political nomenclature of the day, 'Conservatives,' or in the Shamboro' vernacular, 'Blues.' The names of both were shortly to be combined in colossal type on huge placards. Both were to march on their canvass in closely united twindom through the courts and alleys of Shamboro', soliciting the double votes of the independent electors for Dibbs and Greville; but since the days of Cain and Abel two contemporary human beings were never more utterly unlike in all respects than the two Blue candidates, whose united mission, as proclaimed in their consolidated address, was the 'maintenance of our glorious constitution in Church and State.' Of Mr. Dibbs, the bill-discounting attorney, and now senior candidate for Shamboro', we have already heard in such a manner perhaps as not to stimulate any anxiety for further acquaintance. It may nevertheless be convenient to state that Mr. Dibbs was a short, pursy, self-important individual of sixty-two, without an aspirate in his vocabulary or one noble thought in his head or heart. He knew-none better-all the daily modulations of the Stock Exchange, the relapses' and 'recoveries' of the share market, when tin-plates were flat, and when wool and mule-twist were buoyant. It was his constant boast that he had entered Shamboro' a friendless boy, with a shilling in his pocket, half a century ago, and that by what he called 'honest industry,' but which his enemies were so unkind as to characterise as successful gambling, he had become owner of the biggest house in the suburbs, and for all practical purposes the lord and master of half the small tenements in the town. He had three times filled the office of mayor, and having, as was generally believed, always the power of returning one member at least for the borough, he had conceived on the present occasion the somewhat startling idea of returning himself. The origin and antecedents of Mr. Dibbs's colleague in the contest remain to be unfolded. CHAPTER VI. CHARLES GREVILLE was the son of a clergyman in Essex, and having passed creditably through Eton and obtained a scholarship at Balliol, he had afterwards entered at Lincoln's Inn with a view of being spent in a pupil room, 8 feet by 10, poring over heaps of titles, with his long legs tucked under an office table, mahogany by nature and ebony by smoke, Greville's professional ardour had considerably cooled, and all romantic dreams of the Woolsack had faded before the uncomfortable realities of life, which afforded only blue devils for the present, and seemed to promise neither profit nor distinction for the future. Within two years after Greville had been called to the bar, his contemporaries were tailing off, some to New Zealand, some to family livings, while others were eking out a miserable subsistence by Saturday Reviewing: two were engaged to be married, and were therefore, as far as Greville was concerned, as good as dead. One who had had the luck to pick up some living languages in his boyhood had gone off as Times' correspondent to the South of Europe Meantime Greville, after exhausting all the at 1,000l. a year. attorney power that could be put in motion by every branch of his family, could only boast that two briefs had found their way to his box, and as neither required the utterance of a single word on his part, the world was none the wiser. Cribbed, cabined, and confined' in a small attic in Stone Buildings, Greville could see no ray of hope on the horizon. 6 Small comfort his when each dull day was o'er ; To some snug tenement near Russell Square. His father, whose thoughts were rather set on a deanery for himself than on the bettering of Charles's prospects, told him, in answer to some rather anxious letters, to be patient and abide his time, which would come some day. Charles, however, being unable, as he said, 'to see it,' was on the point of bolting for the Antipodes, when the death of a venerable uncle, at whose funeral his nephew was as unable to cry as most people now are to laugh at 'Punch,' suddenly altered his prospects and position, and enabled him to choose his own career in life, and turn his back on Lincoln's Inn and its dingy stair cases for ever. Though Charles Greville had never taken the slightest interest in the law as a profession, the interval which had elapsed since his Oxford days had not been wasted. Historical studies, which always had an especial charm for him, had been pursued with a zeal quickened by an increasing watchfulness of passing events, and one long vacation the generosity of the same relative to whom he now owed his changed fortunes had enabled him to spend in a Transatlantic trip, in the course of which the political bias of his boyhood had been intensely strengthened. The Carlton Club never made a heartier and more vigorous recruit than when they enlisted Charles Greville in their ranks at six and twenty. Not that he cared a farthing for the prizes to be won at party fights, or that he was incapable of seeing through the 'by ends' and dodges of the Tadpoles Shamboro', and tell them to get ready for a stand-up fight with two a side.' While the wire-pullers in Pall Mall were thus contemptuously pre-arranging the political destinies of Shamboro', they took very small account of one individual who, though the most insignificant marionette in Captain Heaviweight's programme, was nevertheless destined to bear no unimportant part in the coming struggle. 6 The second man,' who was to act as waste-paper-basket for Dibbs's stray votes, had probably not one single aspiration in common with his colleague. Both were, indeed, according to the political nomenclature of the day, Conservatives,' or in the Shamboro' vernacular, 'Blues.' The names of both were shortly to be combined in colossal type on huge placards. Both were to march on their canvass in closely united twindom through the courts and alleys of Shamboro', soliciting the double votes of the independent electors for Dibbs and Greville; but since the days of Cain and Abel two contemporary human beings were never more utterly unlike in all respects than the two Blue candidates, whose united mission, as proclaimed in their consolidated address, was the maintenance of our glorious constitution in Church and State.' Of Mr. Dibbs, the bill-discounting attorney, and now senior candidate for Shamboro', we have already heard in such a manner perhaps as not to stimulate any anxiety for further acquaintance. It may nevertheless be convenient to state that Mr. Dibbs was a short, pursy, self-important individual of sixty-two, without an aspirate in his vocabulary or one noble thought in his head or heart. He knew-none better-all the daily modulations of the Stock Exchange, the relapses' and 'recoveries' of the share market, when tin-plates were flat, and when wool and mule-twist were buoyant. It was his constant boast that he had entered Shamboro' a friendless boy, with a shilling in his pocket, half a century ago, and that by what he called 'honest industry,' but which his enemies were so unkind as to characterise as successful gambling, he had become owner of the biggest house in the suburbs, and for all practical purposes the lord and master of half the small tenements in the town. He had three times filled the office of mayor, and having, as was generally believed, always the power of returning one member at least for the borough, he had conceived on the present occasion the somewhat startling idea of returning himself. The origin and antecedents of Mr. Dibbs's colleague in the contest remain to be unfolded. CHAPTER VI. CHARLES GREVILLE was the son of a clergyman in Essex, and having passed creditably through Eton and obtained a scholarship at Balliol, he had afterwards entered at Lincoln's Inn with a view of being 559 spent in a pupil room, 8 feet by 10, poring over heaps of titles, with his long legs tucked under an office table, mahogany by nature and ebony by smoke, Greville's professional ardour had considerably cooled, and all romantic dreams of the Woolsack had faded before the uncomfortable realities of life, which afforded only blue devils for the present, and seemed to promise neither profit nor distinction for the future. Within two years after Greville had been called to the bar, his contemporaries were tailing off, some to New Zealand, some to family livings, while others were eking out a miserable subsistence by Saturday Reviewing: two were engaged to be married, and were therefore, as far as Greville was concerned, as good as dead. One who had had the luck to pick up some living languages in his boyhood had gone off as Times' correspondent to the South of Europe at 1,000l. a year. Meantime Greville, after exhausting all the attorney power that could be put in motion by every branch of his family, could only boast that two briefs had found their way to his box, and as neither required the utterance of a single word on his part, the world was none the wiser. Cribbed, cabined, and confined' in a small attic in Stone Buildings, Greville could see no ray of hope on the horizon. Small comfort his when each dull day was o'er r; To some snug tenement near Russell Square. His father, whose thoughts were rather set on a deanery for himself than on the bettering of Charles's prospects, told him, in answer to some rather anxious letters, to be patient and abide his time, which would come some day. Charles, however, being unable, as he said, 'to see it,' was on the point of bolting for the Antipodes, when the death of a venerable uncle, at whose funeral his nephew was as unable to cry as most people now are to laugh at 'Punch,' suddenly altered his prospects and position, and enabled him to choose his own career in life, and turn his back on Lincoln's Inn and its dingy stair cases for ever. Though Charles Greville had never taken the slightest interest in the law as a profession, the interval which had elapsed since his Oxford days had not been wasted. Historical studies, which always had an especial charm for him, had been pursued with a zeal quickened by an increasing watchfulness of passing events, and one long vacation the generosity of the same relative to whom he now owed his changed fortunes had enabled him to spend in a Transatlantic trip, in the course of which the political bias of his boyhood had been intensely strengthened. The Carlton Club never made a heartier and more vigorous recruit than when they enlisted Charles Greville in their ranks at six and twenty. Not that he cared a farthing for the prizes to be won at party fights, or that he was in 6 and Tapers, but because he despised and hated still more the fullgrown babies who were playing at 'civil and religious liberty' on the other side. Greville was no political antiquarian, no lover of rust and dust for its own sake. If he had lived in the days of Eldon he might probably have espoused Eldonism; but as he did not, it was of no account to him. He had seen with his own eyes corruption in its vilest forms infecting the whole body politic of the United States, and he knew that the great American Republic, which some of his Oxford contemporaries had loved to extol as the model of purity and freedom, was in fact affording to the world a type of political degradation, compared with which Sir Robert Walpole's administration was spotless. Greville, therefore, though liberal' in the best acceptation of that adjective, was in the party nomenclature of the day a Conservative and something more; and when, shortly after his uncle's 50,000l. had fallen into his pockets, our hero was on a visit to an old college friend in Suffolk, whose father had formerly represented his native county, it is no matter of surprise that Greville should have been infected by the atmosphere which surrounded him, and seized the opportunity which the coming election offered for entering into the fray. Nor was it unnatural that on his arrival at the Grange, Sir Henry Berkeley's country house, distant a few miles from Shamboro', he should impart to him his views and wishes. With the ardour of youth he let fly at the Jacobins of the day, whom he omitted no opportunity of denouncing. It so happened that two days after Greville's arrival there was to be a dinner party at the Grange, and there was one inflammable element in it in the shape of a Radical brother-in-law of Sir Henry's residing in the neighbourhood, and for the sparks that might fly off the worthy baronet feared that his son's Tory friend might provide tinder. The extensive cousinhood of the Berkeley family made up to the party at the Grange that which was lacking by reason of Sir Henry's want of grown-up daughters, and whenever any gathering took place the services of one or other of his various nieces were placed under requisition. It so happened that on the present occasion Gertrude Berkeley, whose father, a younger brother of Sir Henry's, had died some years before in India, had been summoned by her aunt to aid her in entertaining her guests and making tea and conversation at the Grange. And whenever she was summoned, it followed as a necessary consequence that her uncle and guardian, Mr. Richardson, at whose house she was domiciled, should also be invited. For though Mrs. Richardson was Sir Henry's sister, she had unfortunately married an individual so odious that even his Whig neighbours sighed for the predicted millennial period when the vile person should no more be called Liberal.' Sir Henry, whose aim was peace with all men, always dreaded the visitations from Pinchbeck Park, and knowing as he did the outspoken freedom of his son's young Tory friend, and Mr. Richardson's capacity |