But we spoke of General Tarleton’s military colleague, the Castor to his Pollux, General Gascoigne. “The old general,” as the latter was familiarly called, was a remarkable instance of how little is required to make a legislator. He had all the unfitness of General Tarleton without his dashing and brilliant exploits as a soldier, to veneer and varnish over the preter-pluperfect common-place of his character. He was an ignorant and illiterate man. This may, perhaps, be ascribed to the early age at which he had joined the army. At all events, his education must have been more in the school of Mrs. Malaprop than of Dr. Syntax. His highest attribute was a species of cunning, which sometimes did for him what greater talent has failed to do for other persons. He was a man of intense selfishness. His gratitude was of that peculiar kind which burns with a white heat glow for benefits to come, but looks with cold and freezing eyes upon favours received. He treated his friends as he did his gloves, that is, he wore out both, and then cast them from him. He constantly forgot his supporters at the last election, to coquet with those who, he hoped, might help him at the next. But such a game could not be played for ever. General Tarleton was, we said, in his summary expulsion from the representation, the victim of ingratitude. When General Gascoigne’s turn came, he was justly punished for his ingratitude towards so many of his best friends. He had most industriously earned the fate which overtook him. His immediate predecessor in the seat for the borough was his brother, Bamber Gascoigne, of Childwall-hall, whose only daughter and heiress married, at a later period, the Marquis of Salisbury. Bamber was a man of a very different stamp and calibre from his brother. He was a good specimen of the gentleman of the old school, and very much superior generally to the country squires of his day. His tastes were refined and literary. He was a thoroughly educated and well-read person. He was at once proud and courteous in his manner, and aristocratic in his bearing. His habits attached him more to his library than to the arena of the House of Commons, and he, consequently, did not kill himself with toiling in the cause of his constituents. On some occasion, a deputation of our merchants waited upon him to remonstrate upon some alleged lack of zeal in their behalf. The interview was not a pleasant one. The member received the remonstrants with either too little humility or too little courtesy. As they grew warmer, he became colder and stiffer. The end of the matter was that they did not exactly part company in a gale of wind, but, while they gave him notice to quit, they relented so far that they told him that, out of respect to a family which had so long represented the town, they would, in depriving him of his seat, transfer it to his younger brother, the redoubtable general. It was a pity, for he had every quality which the other wanted.