on the private understanding that they should not be forgotten in the next Parliament, and in this belief they exerted themselves strenuously for the Government. They were disappointed, as the world knows; for when the new Parliament met in January, 1735, and the friends of the Dissenting interests began to ask for their reward, Sir Robert declared himself against them, and in the following year both spoke and voted against the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. But his immediate purpose was answered, and the future was to take care of itself. From this moment the attachment of the Dissenters to the Whigs began to cool, and the result of their defection was seen at the next general election, when the ministerial majority was destroyed. But down to the year 1734 their zeal was unabated, and they and their city friends secured to the Prime Minister another seven years of office.

"The election was fought," says Lord Stanhope, with "more than usual acrimony all over the kingdom. But nowhere more so than in Yorkshire." "This," says the steward of one of the candidates, "has been the hottest election that ever was in England." The four candidates were Sir Miles Stapylton and Mr. Wortley in the Tory interest, and Mr. Turner and Sir Rowland Winn in the Whig. The letters, however, in the Wentworth Collection, from which the following account is taken, are deficient in political information, and we can only infer from the context that such was the case. It is certain that Lord Strafford, the head of the Wentworth family, was a Tory, and that he gave his interest to Stapylton and Mr. Wortley. But other members of the family, his brothers, Peter Wentworth and Thomas Watson Wentworth,1 whose son was created Lord Malton in 1728, were Whigs. The former continued on the most intimate footing with his brothers, but there was a standing feud between Lord Strafford and Lord Malton, and the Yorkshire election of 1734 was a trial of strength between them. The contest was extremely close, but Sir Miles Stapylton, the Tory candidate, was returned at the head of the poll by a majority of seventeen over Mr. Turner, who came next. Sir Rowland Winn, the other Whig candidate, was third, and Mr. Wortley, the second Tory, who never had a chance, fourth. Preparations had been made for a grand ball at York to celebrate the Whig victory; "but we spoiled their harmony," says Mr. Phipps in a letter to his son, "though," he adds with some humour, "they will have to pay the piper all the same. The ladies, as usual, took a keen interest in the result. Lady Winn "freated" very much, we are told, at the result, and Lady Malton turned away a maid-servant for crying, "Stapylton for ever!" Her ladyship, we are informed, had ordered "a fine suit of close," in case the Whigs won the day, in which, it appears, she was to have headed a kind of triumphal progress from York to Scarborough. But the day being lost the box was never unpacked. On the road home

(1) Second son of Lord Rockingham, and grandfather of the Marquis.

to Malton her carriage was constantly followed by Tory voters returning from York, who cried, "Down with the Rump! No bull beef! Stapylton and Wortley for ever!" Other warm Whig partisans were greatly discomfited by the result, as they had made quite certain of victory. "Sir William Rooke is gone mad; Mr. Wilton is very much dismayed; Colonel Foley behaves himself very oddly." The Excise was the great Tory cry, and there was evidently a very strong public feeling on the subject. But it is pretty clear, from the letters written to Lord Strafford by his steward and some of his neighbours in the county, that good management and liberal treating were the principal agencies relied upon. The steward was much alarmed at first by hearing that Lord Malton's people had been treating the Sheffield voters with wine, while Mr. Bampford, who represented Sir Miles's interests, had only been giving them ale. And we find constant intimation that the other side are spending more money, and will certainly secure all the smaller freeholders if better care is not taken.

The expense of canvassing a county like Yorkshire, and bringing the poorer voters up to the poll, was of course enormous. Several horses were killed before the struggle was over; and as the end drew near the lame, the blind, and possibly the dead, too, were hurried up to the scene of action in every kind of conveyance that could be laid hold of. The exultation of the Tories was excusable, for Yorkshire was a stronghold of Whigism, and the influence of the Court thrown into the same scale was in those days really formidable. Similar victories, however, were gained in many other English counties. The Castle interest was defeated in Leicestershire, and two Tories were returned for Gloucestershire, "an event," says Lord Bathurst, "which had never happened before since the Revolution." As, however, I have already shown, the county victories were insufficient to turn the scale against the overwhelming borough interest of the Whigs. When Parliament reassembled Sir Robert was found to be at the head of a majority, diminished indeed, but still strong enough to maintain him in power. In April, 1735, appeared the last number of the Craftsman, and in the following summer Bolingbroke returned to France, and commenced his Letters on History.

The game was lost. But Bolingbroke was only fifty-seven. At the end of another seven years he would not have been so old as Walpole when Walpole retired from office, as fit to continue in it as at any period of his life. There must have been something more than the result of the general election to account for his separation from his friends, and his renunciation of all the objects of political ambition. For he never seems to have looked forward any more to taking a lead in practical politics. It is said that he quarrelled with Pulteney, that he was afraid of Walpole, that he had been detected in Jacobite conspiracies, that he was not popular with the party;

and Bolingbroke himself does say, that his presence in England was by some people considered mischievous. However this may be, he now retires from the scene, and his part in the drama is concluded. I have elsewhere endeavoured to delineate the character of this extraordinary man, and to offer some explanation of the motives and principles by which he was personally swayed. If he was not quite the disinterested patriot which some writers have imagined him, he was decidedly a born statesman, surveying the field of politics from an eminence far above his fellows, and honestly desirous of rescuing the British constitution from what he believed to be a downward path.

In praise of Walpole it is always said that he was a lover of peace; and there is no reason to doubt that he really was so. But in that case it is clear that both George I. and George II. exercised personal government in everything for which they really cared, and that Walpole was unable to prevent them without at least risking his disgrace. The petty wars, large subsidies, and embarrassing engagements which characterized our Foreign policy during the whole of the time, were odious in the eyes of the people, but were supported in the House of Lords by the Whig grandees who had staked everything on the new system, and in the House of Commons partly by their nominees, partly by the City interest, and partly by members who were paid in hard cash. This was the system against which the Tory party under Wyndham and Bolingbroke steadily protested. Neither statesman desired the return of the Stuarts. And among their followers those who did so were a handful. But even had it been otherwise it is difficult to see why the restoration of the Stuarts should have been the greater evil of the two. It is ridiculous to suppose that they would have attempted either to defy the House of Commons, to molest the Church of England, or to establish episcopacy in Scotland. But it is not improbable that they might have settled the Irish question, and so have prevented a difficulty which threatens the very integrity of the Empire. They would have saved us from a great part of the debt of which every English household, says Mr. Lecky, is now feeling the baneful effects. And they might perhaps have done something to modify the system of party, which of late years has shown its darker side so constantly as to make many men doubtful of its value. These would have been great gains. But for all that the policy of the Tory party did not aim at a restoration. Wyndham and the great body of the Anglican Tories had loyally accepted the Revolution, and desired nothing more than to administer the new constitution on national and popular principles. Their want of success is I think to be regretted, though it has been the fashion to think otherwise, but let us at least do justice to their memory and to their motives, and allow that even if mistaken their intentions were liberal and patriotic.

T. E. KEBBel.

ASSASSINATION AND DYNAMITE.

ANGER and wonder must predominate in the mind of any rightminded man who will take the trouble to study at any length the newspaper literature of the dynamite question. Eloquent orators assure listening crowds that they have at last hit upon the true way of winning Irish independence:-Set fire to a certain number of English cities; blow up a certain number of English ships and railway trains and public buildings; and, in so doing, commit a wholesale murder of innocent and peaceful people-women and children as well as men. Only pursue this "policy" with sufficient energy and perseverance, and you will infallibly bring England to her knees, and force her to concede all that you ask.

It is impossible to deny that not only sentiments like these have been publicly addressed to more or less numerous meetings of Irishmen in American cities; but that these sentiments, so far from being emphatically condemned, they have been received with manifestations of strong approval. Money has been subscribed liberally to aid in carrying into action the dynamite doctrine; and when political murder has been committed in Ireland, the people have not shown any keen desire to aid in bringing the offenders to justice. From these facts many Englishmen are ready to jump to the conclusion that the Irish people, or the great majority of them, are in entire sympathy with the dynamite doctrines. The truth, in my opinion, lies somewhere between the two extremes. I cannot pretend to be in the confidence of the dynamite party; but I have had some opportunity of ascertaining the views of my countymen in America regarding the proposed policy. It is not true that a majority of the Irish in America, much less of the Irish at home, are favourable to a policy of dynamite and murder. But it must be admitted that a very considerable number of Irishmen in America who have never taken and have no thought of taking any part whatever in a dynamite campaign, will be found to excuse such a policy in conversation. And even amongst those (and they are the majority) who cannot fairly be said to sympathise in any sense with dynamite doctrines, the prevalent feeling is one of indifference, or, at most, of a somewhat languid disapproval. Vehement disapproval you will, no doubt, sometimes meet with; but, so far as my experience extends, amongst the Irish population this is the exception rather than the rule.

There are few doctrines so entirely vicious as not to admit of having something said in their favour. The following dialogue may be supposed to take place between an Englishman, an Irishman, and

an American. As to the scene of the dialogue I leave the reader to suit his own taste, merely stipulating that it shall be somewhere in the United States :—

A. "Suppose that, upon the evening of the Phoenix Park murder, Mr. Forster had been in the place of Lord Frederick Cavendish, do you believe that the majority of your countrymen would then have felt shocked and grieved?"

I. "It is not very easy to speak with confidence as to the probable sentiments of other people in a certain contingency. But I will answer your question to the best of my knowledge. I should say that had Mr. Forster alone, or Mr. Burke alone, or both of these gentlemen, been murdered, a great number, probably the majority of Irishmen, would have felt no very violent grief or indignation. They would have felt that the deed was one which they would not have liked to have had any hand in doing. But being done, they would not have regarded it with any vehement sentiment of disapproval." A. "You seem to take the matter very quietly.

Do you not see how entirely the moral sense of a people must have become perverted before they can come to feel as you describe?”

I. "I do take the matter quietly, or, at least, I try to do so. These murders evoked in England, and, to some extent, in America also, an outburst of horror and anger which rendered it for a time quite impossible to discuss the matter rationally. And naturally so. That a man should at once and instinctively regard a crime of this sort with horror is an indication that his moral sense is in a sound conditon. But this emotional judgment, however right and true, will not help us much in the effort to estimate the full meaning and gravity of the situation which renders possible such acts and such a state of national feeling. Which way do you want the subject discussed now, emotionally or rationally? If you choose the latter, you must not be surprised or shocked if I seem to take the matter coolly, and if I avoid the use of strong adjectives."

A. "Well, suppose we discuss the subject in what you are pleased to call the rational way. And first of all I want a direct answer to a question which I have asked you already, and which you seem to be somewhat unwilling to answer directly. Do you or do you not admit that the moral sense of a people must be to a great extent perverted before they can come to think and feel in the way you have described ?"

I. "I have not the least objection to answer that question directly. I answer it without the least hesitation in the affirmative. But if the moral sense of the people be somewhat perverted, how or why has it become so ? We said something about that in our last conversation. I admit that ideas of right and wrong have got considerably mixed up in Ireland, but I hold that, in the social disunion