'Orsay_ hat so rakishly, is 'Honest Tom,' a
metropolitan representative; and the large man in the cloak with the
white lining--not the man by the pillar; the other with the light hair
hanging over his coat collar behind--is his colleague. The quiet
gentlemanly-looking man in the blue surtout, gray trousers, white
neckerchief and gloves, whose closely-buttoned coat displays his manly
figure and broad chest to great advantage, is a very well-known
character. He has fought a great many battles in his time, and conquered
like the heroes of old, with no other arms than those the gods gave him.
The old hard-featured man who is standing near him, is really a good
specimen of a class of men, now nearly extinct. He is a county Member,
and has been from time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary.
Look at his loose, wide, brown coat, with capacious pockets on each side;
the knee-breeches and boots, the immensely long waistcoat, and silver
watch-chain dangling below it, the wide-brimmed brown hat, and the white
handkerchief tied in a great bow, with straggling ends sticking out
beyond his shirt-frill. It is a costume one seldom sees nowadays, and
when the few who wear it have died off, it will be quite extinct. He can
tell you long stories of Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, and Canning, and how much
better the House was managed in those times, when they used to get up at
eight or nine o'clock, except on regular field-days, of which everybody
was apprised beforehand. He has a great contempt for all young Members
of Parliament, and thinks it quite impossible that a man can say anything
worth hearing, unless he has sat in the House for fifteen years at least,
without saying anything at all. He is of opinion that 'that young
Macaulay' was a regular impostor; he allows, that Lord Stanley may do
something one of these days, but 'he's too young, sir--too young.' He is
an excellent authority on points of precedent, and when he grows
talkative, after his wine, will tell you how Sir Somebody Something, when
he was whipper-in for the Government, brought four men out of their beds
to vote in the majority, three of whom died on their way home again; how
the House once divided on the question, that fresh candles be now brought
in; how the Speaker was once upon a time left in the chair by accident,
at the conclusion of business, and was obliged to sit in the House by
himself for three hours, till some Member could be knocked up and brought