“If Tacks thus lose, It plainly shows, The Spirit of the Nation; That we may find, For Time, behind, They’ll lose their Reputation. “Before the JACKS[35] were said to Tack Our loyal fine Pretences; But here folks say, The Humour lay To bring us to our Senses. “Religious Laws, was then the Cause, OCCASIONAL CONFORMING; Did not agree with true Piety, And set the Church a storming. “But now ’tis come, they Tack in fine, After a great Consumption; And therefore thought to have it brought In, by way of Resumption. “Thus Projects, and thus Patriots chang’d, The House appear’d so civil; Both Tacks, which cost such Pains were lost, And thrown out to the Devil.” In 1695, the legislature passed a severe act against bribery and treating, the first of a series of similar preventative measures which have been found requisite from time to time down to our own day. That this act was needed is proved by the records of the immense sums expended in corrupting the suffrage. Addison’s patron, Thomas, Marquis of Wharton, is calculated to have spent eighty thousand pounds of his own fortune in electioneering. This spirited nobleman, who was one of the most energetic Whigs, and largely instrumental in bringing over the Prince of Orange, has been regarded as the greatest adept at electioneering which England ever saw, and, says Hannay, “may pass as the patriarch of the art in this country.” It is certain that his abilities were admirably adapted to the purpose of exercising this control. It was his policy “to forward the designs of an oligarch by the attraction of a demagogue,” a branch of higher art, which has had imitators in this age. He managed to return from twenty to thirty members, at an expenditure of thousands, backed by a happy persuasive knack of carrying all before him. Nor did he stop at an occasional duel by the way. In the general election of 1705 alone, he spent twelve thousand pounds. But cash, pluck, enterprise, and activity would have been less conspicuous had they not been supplemented by what has been called a “born genius for canvassing,” as is proved from the “Memoirs” which appeared shortly after his death in 1715. Wharton’s biographer introduces the subject of an electoral contest for the borough of Wicombe, at the beginning of Anne’s reign. His Whig lordship having recommended two candidates of his own choice, the staunch Church party, in a flutter of indignation, put up two High Tory candidates, and money was freely spent on both sides. A friend of one of the High Church candidates being desirous of witnessing the progress made by this canvasser, was invited down to Wicombe to watch the proceedings, and it was he who imparted the details to the compiler of the “Memoirs.”[36] The “Tantivy” party arrived to find my Lord Wharton before them, accompanied by his two _protégées_, going up and down the town securing