Mr Graham, after accompanying Lord William Bentinck through his campaign in Italy, returned to England, and began, early in 1815, to feel his way towards a seat in the House of Commons. It was a season, as a few of our readers may possibly recollect, of great suffering among the people, and anxiety to the Government. The renewal of the war with France added upwards of one hundred millions to the national debt; and peace, when it was purchased by the battle of Waterloo, seemed to bring only poverty in its train. A spirit of general disaffection pervaded the masses, and recourse was had to stringent measures in order to preserve the public peace. Drawn away by old associations, Mr Graham joined the ranks of the ultra-Liberals. Lord Archibald Hamilton was his kinsman, and Lord Folkstone, Sir Francis Burdett, and Lord Althorpe, won his political affections. His father, on the other hand, continued to profess the Tory principles in which he had grown old; so that, but for the sympathy of Lady Catherine, the young man might have found himself ill at ease as an inmate of Netherby Hall. Accordingly, he spent but little of his time there in the interval between his return from abroad and the general election of 1818; when, being assured of the support of Lord Milton, and obtaining through his mother letters of recommendation to Mr Wilberforce, he entered the lists as a candidate for Hull, and fought a hard battle to a successful issue. We confess not to hold the name of William Wilberforce quite in the same degree of veneration in which it is held by his sons. We believe that there was no slight sprinkling of what is vulgarly called humbug in the good man’s character; and we find some corroboration of this suspicion in the fact that, though well aware of Mr Graham’s ultra-Liberal opinions, he nevertheless, because of the affection with which he regarded Lady Catherine, recommended her son to the constituency of Hull. A like charge may, we think, be brought against Dean Milner, subject, of course, to extenuating circumstances. Dean Milner conscientiously believed that the admission of Roman Catholics to political power would be tantamount to the establishment of idolatry in Great Britain: yet he, too, because Lady Catherine sat at his feet, gave a testimonial to her son, whom he knew to be an advocate of Catholic emancipation. By these means, and through the active agency of two Roman Catholic gentlemen and one clergyman of the Church of England, Mr Graham conducted his canvass with such spirit, that on the day of nomination an immense majority of hands was held up in his favour; and at the end of the second day’s polling he was thirty-three ahead of the gentleman whom he had determined to oust, and whom he succeeded in ousting. Those, however, were times when polling went on for fifteen consecutive days, during which electors and their friends lived at free quarters, candidates paying the piper. When, therefore, the returning-officer