“And whosoever shall receive or take any money or other reward, by way of Gift, Loan, or other device, or agree or contract for any Money, Gift, Office, or Reward whatsoever, to give his vote, shall for every such offence forfeit the sum of Five Hundred Pounds, and be _for ever_ disabled to vote in any Election of any Member to Parliament, and be for ever disabled to hold any public office.’ “Will any man, pretending to common honesty, thus basely forfeit his Birthright, his most glorious privilege as an Englishman, by a shameful perjury for the Lucre of a Bribe? Can such a Bribe make him and his posterity happy in the midst of his country’s ruin, and the just contempt and abhorrence of all his neighbours? No, surely: but when the small wages of his iniquity are spent, he must, like the Traitor Judas, hang himself, or starve to death; because no man can either pity, or deal with such a perjured abandoned wretch. “Artful corruptors of the present times may flatter weak minds with hopes of being admitted to vote without taking the Oath; but it is a vain delusion; since the Law allows the _Candidates or any two of the Electors_ to put the Oath to whomsoever they please; and surely there are at least _Two Honest Men_ in every Borough of the Kingdom, who will think it their duty to bring Corruption to the Test of this just and necessary Oath, to the eternal infamy of all Corruptors, and the Corrupted.” The oath thus explicitly explained was in sober earnest administered by the lawyers retained in the respective interests, as illustrated by Hogarth in his “Polling Booth,” 1754. It is rather alarming to think of the huge amount of perjury which has followed electioneering. The general elections of the spring of 1741 were a trying ordeal for Walpole; all the well-worn clamours were revived, the “Convention” was once more torn to shreds, and fresh attacks upon the “excise projects” were turned to bitter political account. Amidst a shower of squibs, both literary and pictorial, we find the caricature, “Dedicated to the worthy Electors of Great Britain,” of “The Devil upon Two Sticks,” in which Walpole, as the “Asmodeus” of the situation, is represented as being supported upon the shoulders of two of his bought-majority to ford the “Slough of Despond,” already crossed by some of his followers, who, though in safety on the bank, bear evident marks of the dirty ordeal through which they have been compelled to struggle upon “Robin’s” account. Britannia and her patriotic friends(?) remain high and dry on the other shore; below the satire appears a pointed indication of the unpopular Walpolians, as “Members who voted for the Excise and against the Convention.” [Illustration: To the worthy Electors of Great Britain. Walpole carried through the “Slough of Despond.” THE DEVIL ON TWO STICKS. 1741.]