The elections in Oxfordshire were marked by a more animated conflict than elsewhere; the Jacobite faction was still strong there, although the comparatively recent fate of those who had declared for the Pretender served to keep these sympathies within discreet limits. The contest was strongly marked by incidents which have survived in the four famous election pictures painted by William Hogarth, the unequalled originals of which, still in fine condition, are now somewhat lost to the public in Sir John Soane’s Museum,[44] but of which the engravings are most familiar. Hogarth sold the series to his friend David Garrick for the modest price of 200 guineas; at the sale of Mrs. Garrick’s effects, in 1823, they were secured by Sir John Soane for the corresponding moderate sum of £1732 10_s._ The “Election Entertainment” was exhibited at Spring Gardens in 1761. These characteristic satires seem to apply to electioneering episodes in general, not only of the eighteenth century, but until within the present; a recapitulation of the principal allusions, however, will show that these pictures are composed of studies for the most part drawn from life, and founded on the actualities of the 1754 contest in Oxfordshire. The “Election Entertainment,” the first of these plates, is so well known that it was felt unnecessary to reproduce any of its incidents. This scene might he taken as a generalistic view of the electioneering hospitality and “open house,” one of the first steps towards conciliating support, but that the three “party-cries” distinctive of this particular struggle are all pictorially perpetuated. The scene embodies gluttony, turbulence, and false patriotism, but bribery and violent intimidation prevail above all. The mayor, who occupies the seat of honour, has succumbed to a surfeit of oysters, and a phlebotomist of the barber tribe is endeavouring to blood his arm and cool his head at one time. A ministerial-looking personage is treated with coarse familiarity, while a youthful aspirant for popular favour is submitting to tipsified indignities at the hands of his temporary associates. Nichols, who mentions certain assurances he received from Hogarth as to the fact that, with one exception, none of the figures were intended for portraits, affects to recognize the handsome candidate.[45] This modish gentleman has been treating the fair sex to gloves, buff or orange favours, and other gear, from the pack of a pedlar of the Hebrew persuasion, who is also dealing in notes of hand; he holds one for £20 from the candidate, signed “R. Pention” (Pension being the word). While the Court party is regaling the Buffs, or Old Interest, at the leading tavern, their opponents, the Blues, are making an out-of-door demonstration; so that a view of the humours of both sides is simultaneously afforded. The New Interest procession is composed of “bludgeon-men,” bearing an effigy of the Duke of Newcastle,