ed
observer--

'Mud and stones and waving hats,
And broken heads and putrid cats,
Are offerings made to aid the cause
Of order, government, and laws.'

But especially is he struck by the amount of eating and drinking that
appears inseparable from an election in his time:

''Tis strange how much a splendid larder
Lights up electioneering ardour;
You soon awake to _patriae amor_
When stirred about with ale and clamour.'

Sterling, though singing of

'Those high days when Aleborough proudly sent
Her man to sit in England's Parliament,'

makes the plot of his poem turn upon a love affair in which one of the
candidates embarks, and for the sake of which, indeed, he pretends to
solicit the votes of the electors. There are, however, a few passages
descriptive of electioneering phenomena. We are told, for instance, how
one of the candidates went out to canvass:

'With smiling look and word, and promise bold,
And dainty flatteries meet for young and old,
The tender kiss on squalling mouths impressed,
The glistening ribbon for the maiden's breast,
Grave talk with men how this poor Empire thrives,
The high-priced purchase for their prudent wives,
The sympathizing glance, the attentive ear,
The shake of hands laboriously sincere.'

We have, too, a graphic picture of the nomination day, telling how

'Ten public-houses opening for the Blues
Their floods of moral influence diffuse,
And each of seven its blameless nectar sheds
To nerve the spirits of the valiant Reds.'

By-and-by we read:

'And now the poll begins. The assessors sit
Sublimely sure that what is writ is writ.
The lawyers watch the votes. The skies look down
Unpardonably calm, nor heed the town.'

In how many novels elections figure, I need not say. The name of
political tales is legion, and merely to enumerate them would occupy a
fair amount of space. Who, for example, does not remember the contest
pictured by George Eliot in 'Felix Holt'--that which leads to the riot
in which Felix becomes unintentionally and unfortunately embroiled? 'The
nomination day,' says the novelist, 'was a great epoch of successful
trickery, or, to speak in a more parliamentary manner, of war-stratagem,
on the part of skilful agents.' And she goes on to describe

'the show of hands, and the cheering, the bustling and the pelting,
the roaring and the hissing, the hard hits with small missiles and
the so