And now behold me solemn, sedate, responsible, the Representative of the greatest of Western Powers at the Court where once ARTAXERXES ruled! In quitting Parliamentary life I leave behind me an example which young Members will find it profitable to study. The opportunities I possessed were held in common with hundreds of others whom I leave in obscurity. I had no particular gifts that promised the comfortable pre-eminence I have reached. The coarsest flatterer could not accuse me of oratorical ability. GR-ND-LPH, I confess, excelled me there, and so did G-RST, an abler man than either of us, but lacking in the quality that brought GR-ND-LPHand me to the front and kept us there. What I did, was to keep myself in evidence, and to make myself as disagreeable as possible to people in authority. If the object of attack were GL-DST-NE, good; if it were N-RTHC-TE, better, as showing more independence, and as securing the favourable attention of the Opposition. It is a commonplace, ordinary thing to be cheered by your own side. What the young aspirant to Parliamentary distinction should look to, is to gain the applause of the Benches opposite. R-B-CK knew that in old days, and so did H-RSM-N, and in these later times GR-ND-LPH better and more successfully than either. I quit the House of Commons with unfeigned regret, tempered only by the anticipated pleasure of watching from Teheran the coming cropper of my old friends. The deluge is surely coming for them, whilst I loll landed high and dry upon Ararat. I like to make B-LF-R uneasy by telling him this. But he boasts of an infallible receipt the Government have for keeping up their Parliamentary majority. Here and there a bye-election may reduce it, "but," says B-LF-R, "we can always play next, and win. For every bye-election lost we clap an Irish Member in gaol, or, for the matter of that, a Radical, and thus maintain an even balance. We lose Coventry and they lose O'BR-N'S vote. Spalding goes, and T. H-RR-NGT-N'S vote is crossed out. Northwich is lost, and the Lord Mayor of Dublin is lagged. We lose a vote in the Exchange Ward, Liverpool, and they are bereft of SHEEHY, whilst we have left to the good COX and E. H-RR-NGT-N, with P-NE safe within the mud walls of his castle." That is all very well, but evidently it cannot go on indefinitely. I at least am out of the scuffle happily, and in good time, and, political life's fever over, shall live well. Yours faithfully, H. D. W-LFF. * * * * * THE STRAIGHT TIP. (_To All whom it may concern._)