[Illustration: THE WIT’S LAST STAKE; OR, THE COBBLING VOTER AND ABJECT CANVASSERS. BY T. ROWLANDSON. “Dear Charles, whose eloquence I prize, To whom my every vote is due, What shall we now, alas! devise To cheer our faint desponding crew? “Well have we fought the hard campaign, And battled it with all our force: But self-esteem alone we gain, Outrun and jockey’d in the course.” [_Page 275._] “THE DUCHESS ACQUITTED; OR, THE TRUE CAUSE OF THE MAJORITY ON THE WESTMINSTER ELECTION. “Some strive to wound the virtuous name Of Devonshire’s, Duncannon’s fame, That beauteous peerless pair; And all the toiling earnest throng, Let’s celebrate in tuneful song, The brunette and the fair. When charms conspire, and join their aid, What mortal man is not afraid, Who can unmov’d remain? What heart is safe, whose vote secure, When urg’d by the resistless pow’r Of Venus and her train? Let Slander, with her haggard eye, No more blaspheme with hideous cry, Th’ indefatigable dame. ’Twas Venus in disguise, ’tis said, These efforts thro’ the town display’d, And her’s alone the blame. Than beauty’s force and mighty pow’r, Than charms exerted ev’ry hour, What greater cause of fear? Firm resolution melts away, At beauty’s so superior sway, And Falsehood seems as fair. The heart that still retain’d Love’s fire, Unchill’d by age, warm with desire, Could not resist their sway; ’Twas this rais’d Fox’s numbers higher, This did the tardy votes inspire-- Ah! poor Sir Cecil Wray!” The Tories in their annoyance resorted to libels of the most ungallant and ungenerous order; they accused the duchess of wholesale bribery, and reported that she had in one instance bought the vote of a butcher with a kiss, a rumour which was immediately seized by the whimsical wits for the basis of endless exaggerations. “The Devonshire, or Most Approved Method of Securing Votes” embodies the butcher episode. The practice of claiming some slight service, rewarded at election times with extravagant liberality, as a subterfuge for bribery, is shown in the duchess engaging an elector to put a stitch in her shoe, and illustrated as “The Wit’s Last Stake; or, the Cobbling Voter and Abject Canvassers.”