ord Marney. 'A strong dose for some, but they
are used to potent potions.'

'The bishops, they say, have not made up their minds.'

'Fancy bishops not having made up their minds,' exclaimed Tancred: 'the
only persons who ought never to doubt.'

'Except when they are offered a bishopric,' said Lord Marney.

'Why I like this Maynooth project,' said Tancred, 'though otherwise it
little interests me, is, that all the shopkeepers are against it.'

'Don't tell that to the minister,' said Coningsby, 'or he will give up
the measure.'

'Well, that is the very reason,' said Vavasour, 'why, though otherwise
inclined to the grant, I hesitate as to my vote. I have the highest
opinion of the shopkeepers; I sympathise even with their prejudices.
They are the class of the age; they represent its order, its decency,
its industry.'

'And you represent them,' said Coningsby. 'Vavasour is the quintessence
of order, decency, and industry.'

'You may jest,' said Vavasour, shaking his head with a spice of solemn
drollery; 'but public opinion must and ought to be respected, right or
wrong.'

'What do you mean by public opinion?' said Tancred.

'The opinion of the reflecting majority,' said Vavasour.

'Those who don't read your poems,' said Coningsby.

'Boy, boy!' said Vavasour, who could endure raillery from one he
had been at college with, but who was not over-pleased at Coningsby
selecting the present occasion to claim his franchise, when a new man
was present like Lord Montacute, on whom Vavasour naturally wished to
produce an impression. It must be owned that it was not, as they say,
very good taste in the husband of Edith, but prosperity had developed in
Coningsby a native vein of sauciness which it required all the solemnity
of the senate to repress. Indeed, even there, upon the benches, with
a grave face, he often indulged in quips and cranks that convulsed
his neighbouring audience, who often, amid the long dreary nights of
statistical imposture, sought refuge in his gay sarcasms, his airy
personalities, and happy quotations.

'I do not see how there can be opinion without thought,' said Tancred;
'and I do not believe the public ever think. How can they? They have no
time. Certainly we live at present under the empire of general ideas,
which are extremely powerful. But the public have not invented those
ideas. They have adopted them from convenience. No one has confidence in
himself; on the contrary, every one has a mea