o in a peaceable way. As to those same 'methods of his
own' they were--in fact they were Bribery. Actual purchase of votes by
money slipt into the hand. Go straight to the point. 'The direct
real method this,' thinks Walpole: 'is there in reality any other?' A
terrible question to Constitutional Countries; which, I hear, has never
been resolved in the negative, by the modern improvements of science.
Changes of form have introduced themselves; the outward process, I
hear, is now quite different. According as the fashions and conditions
alter,--according as you have a Fourth Estate developed, or a Fourth
Estate still in the grub stage and only developing,--much variation of
outward process is conceivable.

"But Votes, under pain of Death Official, are necessary to your poor
Walpole: and votes, I hear, are still bidden for, and bought. You may
buy them by money down (which is felony, and theft simple, against the
poor Nation); or by preferments and appointments of the unmeritorious
man,--which is felony double-distilled (far deadlier, though more
refined), and theft most compound; theft, not of the poor Nation's
money, but of its soul and body so far, and of ALL its moneys and
temporal and spiritual interests whatsoever; theft, you may say, of
collops cut from its side, and poison put into its heart, poor Nation!
Or again, you may buy, not of the Third Estate in such ways, but of
the Fourth, or of the Fourth and Third together, in other still more
felonious and deadly, though refined ways. By doing clap-traps, namely;
letting off Parliamentary blue-lights, to awaken the Sleeping Swineries,
and charm them into diapason for you,--what a music! Or, without
clap-trap or previous felony of your own, you may feloniously, in the
pinch of things, make truce with the evident Demagogos, and Son of Nox
and of Perdition, who has got 'within those walls' of yours, and is
grown important to you by the Awakened Swineries, risen into alt, that
follow him. Him you may, in your dire hunger of votes, consent to
comply with; his Anarchies you will pass for him into 'Laws,' as you are
pleased to term them;--instead of pointing to the whipping-post, and
to his wicked long ears, which are so fit to be nailed there, and of
sternly recommending silence, which were the salutary thing.--Buying may
be done in a great variety of ways. The question, How you buy? is not,
on the moral side, an important one. Nay, as there is a beauty in going
straight to