r various humours with surprising facility, drank with
those who loved a cherishing cup in private, made love to the amorous,
prayed with the religious, gossiped with those who delighted in scandal,
and with great sagacity contrived agreeable presents to them all. This
was the most effectual method of engaging such electors as were under
the influence of their wives. As for the rest, he assailed them in
their own way, setting whole hogsheads of beer and wine abroach, for the
benefit of comers; and into those sordid hearts that liquor would not
open, he found means to convey himself by the help of a golden key.

While he thus exerted himself, his antagonist was not idle: his age and
infirmities would not permit him to enter personally into their parties;
but his stewards and adherents bestirred themselves with great industry
and perseverance. The market for votes ran so high, that Pickle's ready
money was exhausted before the day of election, and he was obliged to
write to his patron an account of the dilemma to which he was reduced,
entreating him to take such speedy measures as would enable him to
finish the business which he had so happily begun. This nobleman
communicated the circumstances of the case to the minister, and in a
day or two our candidate found credit with the receiver-general of the
county, who lent him twelve hundred pounds on his personal note,
payable on demand. By means of this new supply he managed matters so
successfully, that an evident majority of votes was secured in his
interest, and nothing could have obstructed his election, had not the
noble peer who set up his competitor, in order to avoid the shame and
mortification of being foiled in his own borough, offered to compromise
the affair with his honour, by giving up two members in another place,
provided the opposition should cease in his own corporation. This
proposal was greedily embraced. On the eve of the election, Peregrine
received an intimation from his patron, desiring him to quit his
pretensions, on pain of his and the minister's displeasure, and
promising that he should be elected for another place.

No other disappointment in life could have given him such chagrin as
he felt at the receipt of this tantalizing order, by which the cup of
success was snatched from his lip, and all the vanity of his ambitious
hope humbled in the dust. He cursed the whole chain of his court
connections, inveighed with great animosity against the rascal