Amongst these Gargantuan consumers, who combined in one the attributes of 'gorging Jack and guzzling Jemmy,' Sir Robert Walpole was celebrated for his powers, and seems to have owed to them no small share of his popularity. Horace writes piteously from the paternal mansion, to which he had returned in 1743, not long after his tour in Italy, to one of his artistic friends: 'Only imagine,' he exclaims, 'that I here every day see men who are mountains of roast beef, and only seem just roughly hewn out into outlines of human form, like the giant rock at Pratolino! I shudder when I see them brandish their knives in act to carve, and look on them as savages that devour one another. I should not stare at all more than I do if yonder alderman at the lower end of the table were to stick his fork into his neighbour's jolly cheek, and cut a brave slice of brown and fat. Why, I'll swear I see no difference between a country gentleman and a sirloin; whenever the first laughs or the second is cut, there run out just the same streams of gravy! Indeed, the sirloin does not ask quite so many questions.' What was the style of conversation at these tremendous entertainments had better be left to the imagination. Sir R. Walpole's theory on that subject is upon record; and we can dimly guess at the feelings of a delicate young gentleman who had just learnt to talk about Domenichinos and Guidos, and to buy ancient bronzes, when plunged into the coarse society of these mountains of roast beef. As he grew up manners became a trifle more refined, and the customs described so faithfully by Fielding and Smollett belonged to a lower social stratum. Yet we can fancy Walpole's occasional visit to his constituents, and imagine him forced to preside at one of those election feasts which still survive on Hogarth's canvas. Substitute him for the luckless fine gentleman in a laced coat, who represents the successful candidate in the first picture of the series. A drunken voter is dropping lighted pipe ashes upon his wig; a hideous old hag is picking his pockets; a boy is brewing oceans of punch in a mash-tub; a man is blowing bagpipes in his ear; a fat parson close by is gorging the remains of a haunch of venison; a butcher is pouring gin on his neighbour's broken head; an alderman--a very mountain of roast beef--is sinking back in a fit, whilst a barber is trying to bleed him; brickbats are flying in at the windows; the room reeks with the stale smell of heavy viands and the fresh vapours of punch and gin, whilst the very air is laden with discordant howls and thick with oaths and ribald songs. Only think of the smart young candidate's headache next morning in the days when soda-water was not invented! And remember too that the representatives were not entirely free from sympathy with the coarseness of their constituents. Just at the period of Hogarth's painting, Walpole, when speaking of the feeling excited by a Westminster election,