d
Irish minister expressed it, should stand upon his own bottom. By this
poetical figure, Lord Londonderry meant that the man should depend
upon himself, upon his own merits and character, without having
recourse to any extrinsic means of working upon the judgment of
others. It is likewise the theory of the law, that a man who _suffers_
his judgment to be indirectly biassed is as bad as the other--and
worse: that he is, in fact, a Worm, unfit to possess his birthright,
of which he should be forthwith deprived. Well, this being premised:
here is the Honourable Tom Snuffleton, who wants to represent our
borough, but having neither merit nor character of any convertible
kind, offers money and gin instead. The substitute is accepted; and
Honourable Tom, slapping his waistcoat several times, congratulates
the free and independent electors on having that day set a glorious
example to the world, by thus exercising their birthright and
upholding their palladium; and the affair is finished amid cheers and
hiccups.

When I say, however, that the substitute is accepted, I do not mean
that it is accepted by, or can be offered to the whole constituency.
That would be a libel. There are many of the electors who have a soul
above sovereigns, and who, if they could accomplish it, would never
drink anything less than claret. These persons are ambitious of being
noticed by the family of Honourable Tom. They are not hungry, but they
take delight in a dinner in that quarter. They also feel intensely
gratified by having their wives and daughters bowed to from the family
carriage. A thousand considerations like these blind them to the
absence of merit and character on the part of the candidate, and lay
them open to that extrinsic influence which, according to the meaning
of the law, is bribery and corruption. As for the man who takes his
bribe, for the sake of convenience, in the direct, portable, and
exchangeable form of a sovereign, he lays it out in any pleasure or
distinction he, on his part, has a fancy for. If he is a dissolute
person, he spends it in the public-house; if he is a proper-behaved
husband, he gives his wife a new gown; if he is a respectable, serious
individual, he devotes it to the conversion of the Wid-a-wak tribe in
Central Africa, and gloats upon the name of John Higgins in the
subscription-list. In whichever way, however, he may seek to gratify
himself, he is neither better nor worse, so far as I can see, than the