lesson of benevolence in
this part of our excellent system, and I will look farther into it. The
candidate appeared and his harangue commenced.

Memory would fail me were I to attempt recording the precise language
of the orator, but his opinions and precepts are so deeply graven on my
recollection that I do not fear misrepresenting them. He commenced
with a very proper and eloquent eulogium on the constitution, which
he fearlessly pronounced to be in its way the very perfection of human
reason; in proof of which he adduced the well-ascertained fact that it
had always been known throughout the vicissitudes and trials of so many
centuries to accommodate itself to circumstances, abhorring change.
"Yes, my friends," he exclaimed, in a burst of patriotic and
constitutional fervor, "whether under the roses or the lilies--the
Tudors, the Stuarts, or the illustrious house of Brunswick, this
glorious structure has resisted the storms of faction, has been able to
receive under its sheltering roof the most opposite elements of domestic
strife, affording protection, warmth, aye, and food and raiment"-(here
the orator happily laid his hand on the shoulder of a butcher, who
wore a frieze overcoat that made him look not unlike a stall-fed
beast)--"yes, food and raiment, victuals and drink, to the meanest
subject in the realm. Nor is this all; it is a constitution peculiarly
English: and who is there so base, so vile, so untrue to himself, to his
fathers, to his descendants, as to turn his back on a constitution
that is thoroughly and inherently English, a constitution that he has
inherited from his ancestors, and which by every obligation both human
and divine he is bound to transmit unchanged to posterity";--here the
orator, who continued to speak, however, was deafened by shouts of
applause, and that part of the subject might very fairly be considered
as definitively settled.

From the constitution as a whole the candidate next proceeded to
extol the particular feature of it that was known as the borough of
Householder. According to his account of this portion of the government,
its dwellers were animated by the noblest spirit of independence, the
most rooted determination to uphold the ministry of which he was the
least worthy member, and were distinguished by what in an ecstasy of
political eloquence he happily termed the most freeborn understanding
of its rights and privileges. This loyal and judicious borough had
never been k