makes the plot of his poem turn upon a love affair in which one of the candidates embarks, and for the sake of which, indeed, he pretends to solicit the votes of the electors. There are, however, a few passages descriptive of electioneering phenomena. We are told, for instance, how one of the candidates went out to canvass: 'With smiling look and word, and promise bold, And dainty flatteries meet for young and old, The tender kiss on squalling mouths impressed, The glistening ribbon for the maiden's breast, Grave talk with men how this poor Empire thrives, The high-priced purchase for their prudent wives, The sympathizing glance, the attentive ear, The shake of hands laboriously sincere.' We have, too, a graphic picture of the nomination day, telling how 'Ten public-houses opening for the Blues Their floods of moral influence diffuse, And each of seven its blameless nectar sheds To nerve the spirits of the valiant Reds.' By-and-by we read: 'And now the poll begins. The assessors sit Sublimely sure that what is writ is writ. The lawyers watch the votes. The skies look down Unpardonably calm, nor heed the town.' In how many novels elections figure, I need not say. The name of political tales is legion, and merely to enumerate them would occupy a fair amount of space. Who, for example, does not remember the contest pictured by George Eliot in 'Felix Holt'--that which leads to the riot in which Felix becomes unintentionally and unfortunately embroiled? 'The nomination day,' says the novelist, 'was a great epoch of successful trickery, or, to speak in a more parliamentary manner, of war-stratagem, on the part of skilful agents.' And she goes on to describe 'the show of hands, and the cheering, the bustling and the pelting, the roaring and the hissing, the hard hits with small missiles and the soft hits with small jokes.' Of the polling day, she writes: 'Every public-house in Treby was lively with changing and numerous company. Not, of course, that there was any treating; treating necessarily had stopped, from moral scruples, when once "the writs were out;" but there was drinking, which did equally well under any name.'