the former smacks a voluntarily sweating forehead and throbbing wounds
for witness of his claim upon your palpable thankfulness. It is an
insult to tell him that he fought for his own satisfaction. Mr. Romfrey
still called himself a Whig, though it was Whig mean vengeance on account
of his erratic vote and voice on two or three occasions that denied him a
peerage and a seat in haven. Thither let your good sheep go, your
echoes, your wag-tail dogs, your wealthy pursy manufacturers! He decried
the attractions of the sublimer House, and laughed at the transparent
Whiggery of his party in replenishing it from the upper shoots of the
commonalty: 'Dragging it down to prop it up! swamping it to keep it
swimming!' he said.
He was nevertheless a vehement supporter of that House. He stood for
King, Lords, and Commons, in spite of his personal grievances, harping
the triad as vigorously as bard of old Britain. Commons he added out of
courtesy, or from usage or policy, or for emphasis, or for the sake of
the Constitutional number of the Estates of the realm, or it was because
he had an intuition of the folly of omitting them; the same, to some
extent, that builders have regarding bricks when they plan a fabric.
Thus, although King and Lords prove the existence of Commons in days of
the political deluge almost syllogistically, the example of not including
one of the Estates might be imitated, and Commons and King do not
necessitate the conception of an intermediate third, while Lords and
Commons suggest the decapitation of the leading figure. The united
three, however, no longer cast reflections on one another, and were an
assurance to this acute politician that his birds were safe. He
preserved game rigorously, and the deduction was the work of instinct
with him. To his mind the game-laws were the corner-stone of Law, and of
a man's right to hold his own; and so delicately did he think the country
poised, that an attack on them threatened the structure of justice. The
three conjoined Estates were therefore his head gamekeepers; their duty
was to back him against the poacher, if they would not see the country
tumble. As to his under-gamekeepers, he was their intimate and their
friend, saying, with none of the misanthropy which proclaims the virtues
of the faithful dog to the confusion of humankind, he liked their company
better than that of his equals, and learnt more from them. They also
listened deferentially to their instructor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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