It may save the reader some time, and relieve him from the weary task of twice listening to the same story, if we steal some passages from a letter which, about this time, Jack Massingbred addressed to his former correspondent. He wrote from the inn at Oughterard, and, although still under the influence of the excitement of the late contest, expressed himself with much of his constitutional calm and frankness. We shall not recapitulate his narrative of the election, but proceed at once to what followed on that description. “I see, Harry, the dubious projection of your nether lip, I appreciate the slow nod of your head, and I fancy I can hear the little half-sigh of deprecation with which you hear all this. Worse again, I don't seek to defend myself. I think my case a bad one; but still I feel there is something to be said in mitigation. You need not trouble yourself to draw up an indictment: I plead guilty--entirely guilty--to all you can say. I _have_ broken with 'the gentlemen' to cast my lot with the _canaille_. Why have n't we a good wholesome word of our own for a home-made article? I _have_ deserted the ranks where, whatever fortune befell, it was honor to fight; I have given up association with the well-bred and the well-mannered, to rub shoulders with the coarse-minded, the rough-hearted, and the vulgar. There is not a reproach you can make me on this score that I have n't already addressed to myself. I feel all the indignity of my situation,--I experience all the insult of their companionship; but, as the lady detected in possession of her lover's picture pleaded in her defence that it was not like him, so I hope to arrest judgment against me by the honest avowal that I detest and despise my party. I don't talk to _you_ about their principles--still less do I say anything of my own--but merely advert here to the miserable compromise a gentleman is driven to make with every sentiment of his nature who once enlists under their flag. As Travers told us one evening--you were of the party, and must remember it--he was speaking of the Peninsular campaign, in which he served as a volunteer--'So long as you were fighting,' said he, 'it was all very well; the fellows were stout-hearted and full of spirit, and you felt that you couldn't ask for better comrades; but when the struggle was over--when it came to associating, living with them, hearing their sentiments, sharing their opinions, hopes, fears, wishes, and so on--then it became downright degradation!' Not, as he remarked, that they were one jot more vicious or more corrupt than their betters, but that every vice and every corruption amongst them seemed doubly offensive by the contact with their coarse natures. Now, my friends, the Liberals, are somewhat in the same category. They do their work right well on the field of battle; they fight, swear, slander, and perjure themselves just like gentlemen; or rather better of the two. They even