A fair representation of a chairing scene is given as the second of a series of eight plates which, under the title of “Robin’s Progress,” satirically delineates the career of Sir Robert Walpole. The newly elected member is seated, tranquilly enough, in a capacious arm-chair, raised aloft by his supporters; there are a few “bludgeon-men” among his followers. Hats are thrown into the air, and a general sense of satisfaction is shown to prevail. One of the party, evidently a person of influence, is made to exclaim, “No bribery, no corruption!” A group of more distrustful persons is pictured in the foreground; an elector observes, “I wish we mayn’t be deceived,” while his confederate is declaring, “I smell a rat!” Whatever “undue influence” might have been hinted on this occasion, Walpole had not at that early date (1701) developed the arts of corruption and electioneering, then synonymous; his proficiency in these branches was of later growth. Although not strictly a contemporaneous picture of the event, the engraving which represents the chairing of Sir Robert Walpole on his election for Castle Rising, Norfolk, in 1701, is the earliest of our election illustrations as regards the date of the incident depicted. Walpole, in succession to his father, sat for Castle Rising, in the last two short parliaments which preceded the death of William III., and at once distinguished himself as an active and able ally of the Whig party, then holding the power of administration. In 1702, he was chosen member for King’s Lynn, and represented that borough in several successive parliaments. After, with the interest of George, Prince of Denmark, filling the posts of secretary at war, 1708, and treasurer of the navy, 1709, the Tory advisers of the latter part of Queen Anne’s reign dismissed Walpole from all his posts. The Commons in 1711 voting him guilty of a high breach of trust and notorious corruption in his office as secretary at war, it was resolved to expel him from the House, and that he should be committed to the Tower. Under this vindictive persecution, he was, by his party, regarded as a martyr to the cause, nor does there appear sufficient proof to justify this severity. Encouraged by Walpole’s energetic tactics, his constituents remained firm, and he was re-elected by the burgesses of Lynn in 1713-14, and, though the House declared the return void, yet the electors persisted in their choice, and Walpole took a decided part against the queen’s Tory ministry, until “the turn of the wheel,” which raised the Elector of Hanover on the English throne as Queen Anne’s successor, threw back the power of administration into the hands of Walpole and the Whigs, and once more reduced the Tories to vent their mortification in unscrupulous attacks and misrepresentations, while they were themselves exerting all their abilities for the subversion of the House of Hanover and the restoration of the exiled Stuarts. The bitterness of party