months' imprisonment, and to pay a fine of L2,000. In March, 1825, his resolutions for the relief of the Irish Catholics were carried by a majority of 247 to 234; but in later life his restless spirit gradually calmed down, and after the appointment of the Melbourne Ministry in 1835, he surprised and disgusted his party by going into opposition, principally (as he alleged) on account of the court which they paid to O'Connell and his followers in their agitation against the Irish Established Church. For some time previous to the sketch we are about to describe he had absented himself from the House, and otherwise shown his distaste for the persons and principles of the leading men of the party to which he had formerly belonged. The busy-bodies who professed to be the exponents of public opinion in Westminster, pressed him for an explicit statement of his views, and eventually called upon him to resign, and he took them directly at their word. The person brought forward to oppose him was John Temple Leader, then member for Bridgwater, a name which suggested to the artist the pictorial pun of _Following the Leader_, the "followers" being Lord Melbourne, Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston, Mr. O'Connell, Sir J. Hobhouse, Mr. Hume, and Sir William Molesworth. Notwithstanding the exertions of the ministers and their friends to secure the election of Mr. Leader, that gentleman was not only beaten by a very considerable majority, but lost as a natural consequence his seat for Bridgwater, a fact which suggested to the artist another able sketch, _The Dog and the Shadow_. The election itself forms the subject of _A Race for the Westminster Stakes_, in which the aged thoroughbred (Sir Francis), ridden by Lord Castlereagh, beats the young horse Leader, jockey Mr. Roebuck. Among the backers of the losing horse, Daniel O'Connell and Joseph Hume may be easily detected by the lugubrious expression of their faces. The sketch of _A Fine Old English Gentleman_ was suggested by a remark made by the _Times_ during the progress of the contest, in which it described Sir Francis as "a fine specimen of the old English gentleman." In the left-hand corner of this sketch the artist has placed a picture of the Tower of London, by way of reminder of the days when the baronet was regarded not so much in the light of "a fine old English Gentleman" as a radical of the most advanced type, and as a martyr in the cause of public liberty. CHANGES IN POLITICAL OPINION.