We have said that, with the exception of the occasional Whig admitted for the sake of appearances, or to be ornamental, the politics of the old Corporators tended to extreme Toryism. They were, nevertheless, divided into two parties, as cordially hating each other as the rival factions in Jerusalem. As their opinions on all great public matters exactly coincided, the apple of discord between them must have been the immense patronage at their disposal, and which was too often considered as the heirloom of the Corporate families. On one side were the Hollingsheads, Drinkwaters, Harpers, etc. On the other, and at that time, and for years after, the stronger interest, were arrayed the Cases, Aspinalls, Clarkes, Branckers, etc. The latter party owed much of their preponderance to the influence of the great John Foster of that day, who, although not a member of the Council himself, possessed a strange power over its decisions and judgments, and brought to his friends the aid of as much common sense and as strong an intellect as ever were possessed by any individual. But it is not to be supposed that the members of the former Corporation limited their attention and zeal to the battle for patronage and place. Let us do them justice. Considering the immensity of the trust committed to their charge, the fact that there was no direct responsibility to check, control, or guide them, and the sleepy sort of animal which public opinion, now so vigilant and wakeful, so open-eared, open-eyed, and loud-tongued, was in those old stagnant times, our conviction has always been that they performed their duty miraculously well. We are neither their accusers nor eulogists. If they were not perfect, they were not altogether faulty. They expended the town’s revenues for the town’s good. Their foresight extended to the future as well as the present. They perceived the elements of coming greatness which the port of Liverpool possessed, and laid the foundation, often in the face of as loud clamour and criticism as those days were capable of exciting, of their growth and development. Their successors have but walked in the path which they had opened, and carried out the plans which these Council forefathers had devised. In every part of the town may be seen their works and creations, carried on under the superintendence of the Mr. Foster whom we have mentioned, and of his gifted son, too little appreciated amongst us until he was beyond the reach of all human praise and applause. On the tablet to Sir Christopher Wren, in St. Paul’s, London, it is written, _Si monumentum quæris_, _circumspice_. And, even so, if we are asked to point out the ever-abiding epitaph which, from generation to generation till the world’s last blaze, will uphold the memory of our old defunct Corporation, we should answer “LIVERPOOL.” When we are told of their extravagance; when we hear of their nepotism; when their spirit of exclusion is scoffed at; when their ultra politics