“That I should not have been elected at all would not have required any explanation,” he writes in his _Autobiography_. “What excites curiosity is that I should have been elected the first time, or, having been elected then, should have been defeated afterwards.” The explanation was that his writings gave as much confidence to Conservatives as they did to the Liberals that he would be a supporter of their cause. The reason he was rejected was that in Parliament he pleased neither the one nor the other. Macaulay, like Mill, was opposed to canvassing. He declared that an elector who surrendered his vote to supplication, or to the caresses of his baby, forgot his duty as much as if he sold it for a banknote. In his contest for the representation of Leeds, in 1832, he refrained from asking a single elector personally for his vote. He wrote: The suffrage of an elector ought not to be asked or to be given as a personal favour. It is as much for the interest of the constituents to choose well, as it can be for the interest of the candidate to be chosen. To request an honest man to vote against his conscience is an insult. The practice of canvassing is quite reasonable under a system in which men are sent to Parliament to serve themselves. It is the height of absurdity under a system in which men are sent to Parliament to serve the public. Gladstone, on the other hand, nor only recognized that canvassing was essential to successful electioneering, but also positively enjoyed it. He, too, was a candidate in that General Election which followed the passing of the great Reform Bill of 1832. He once said, towards the end of his long life, that in all the stirring and momentous political scenes in which he had been an actor—fighting for a seat in the House of Commons, making Cabinets, taking part in historic decisions on peace and war—there was nothing to compare for excitement with his first contest for Newark in 1832, out of which he came victorious. There were 2,000 houses in the borough. It was then the custom for the candidates in all elections personally to visit every house, whether occupied by a voter or not, to solicit the elector for his vote and the non-elector for his or her influence. Gladstone went five times to every house in Newark, thus making 10,000 calls in all. In the twentieth century most candidates are disposed to dispense with canvassing altogether. It must be repugnant to sensitive souls, or to those with a quick response to the ridiculous, to have to go from house to house following the traditionally seductive ways of the aspirant to a seat in the House of Commons. Perhaps the prettiest compliments that have ever been paid, outside those of the lover to his mistress, have been paid by candidates canvassing electors. Kissing even played a leading part in the art in the gallant days of old. The custom had its drawbacks. Did not the eloquent auctioneer who offered for sale the notorious