The diary of George Bubb Dodington, Baron of Melcombe-Regis, does not, it is true, contain any enlightenment upon the subject of the Oxfordshire election as depicted by Hogarth, yet the writer is circumstantial in his account of the elections of April, 1754. The records, however, deal with other contests in which the diarist was active, and notably one which brought Dodington much perplexity of mind and loss of cash. The accounts are nearly all set down as recitals of long interviews with the Duke of Newcastle, who was then trying to strengthen his hands by giving away places to those whose allegiance was doubtful; while Dodington, upon whose influence and assistance he could reckon, reaped nothing but mortification, being in fact an intriguer who was for once played upon for ends other than his own by a more astute and less scrupulous diplomatist than himself. The heads of the alliance are set down as under discussion. Bubb was to furnish his interest towards the electing the new parliament (the dissolution was then an affair of hours), claiming to return six members on his own account. “I did it,” he writes, “in the county of Dorset, as far as they pleased to push it. I engaged also specifically to choose two members for Weymouth, which he desired might be the son of the Duke of Devonshire and Mr. Ellis of the admiralty.” The candidates nominated by the Duke of Newcastle, Lord J. Cavendish and Mr. Ellis, were successfully returned by Dodington’s influence in the sequel. Further, there was opposition in Bridgwater, where Bubb was expected to return two members. Lord Egmont was putting up for that place against the Court, and it was the royal pleasure that Dodington should sacrifice himself to keep the Tory candidate out, as signified through Pelham; to which Bubb replied, “that I desired him, when next these matters came to be discussed, to lay me at the King’s feet, and tell him that, as I found it would be agreeable to his Majesty, I would spare neither pains nor expense to exclude him; and thus it became my engagement to do it if I can.” “Lord Egmont’s successful return,” he writes, “need not affect my election, though it might destroy the Whig interest in Bridgwater for ever.” Poor Bubb, oblivious of the royal antipathies to the friends of the Prince of Wales, was hoping to secure his old post of treasurer of the navy, but the leadership of the House of Commons had fallen upon the Pelhams, and, as the party must be strengthened there, it was hinted that the Duke of Newcastle would have to buy supporters by giving away to waverers the offices which rightly were due to his friends; to which Dodington replied without sophistication, “that he considered himself as useful there as his neighbours, and, considering his age, rank, the offices he had held,” and, “adding to that, choosing six members for them at my own expense, without the expense of one shilling from their side, I thought the world in