a man who shrieks at corruption, and keeps his
farms at rack-rent: who roars himself red at rotten boroughs, and does
not mind if every field on his farms has a rotten gate: a man very
open-hearted to Leeds and Manchester, no doubt; he would give any
number of representatives who will pay for their seats out of their own
pockets: what he objects to giving, is a little return on rent-days to
help a tenant to buy stock, or an outlay on repairs to keep the weather
out at a tenant's barn-door or make his house look a little less like
an Irish cottier's. But we all know the wag's definition of a
philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of
the distance. And so on. All the rest is to show what sort of
legislator a philanthropist is likely to make," ended the Rector,
throwing down the paper, and clasping his hands at the back of his
head, while he looked at Mr. Brooke with an air of amused neutrality.

"Come, that's rather good, you know," said Mr. Brooke, taking up the
paper and trying to bear the attack as easily as his neighbor did, but
coloring and smiling rather nervously; "that about roaring himself red
at rotten boroughs--I never made a speech about rotten boroughs in my
life. And as to roaring myself red and that kind of thing--these men
never understand what is good satire. Satire, you know, should be true
up to a certain point. I recollect they said that in 'The Edinburgh'
somewhere--it must be true up to a certain point."

"Well, that is really a hit about the gates," said Sir James, anxious
to tread carefully. "Dagley complained to me the other day that he
hadn't got a decent gate on his farm. Garth has invented a new pattern
of gate--I wish you would try it. One ought to use some of one's
timber in that way."

"You go in for fancy farming, you know, Chettam," said Mr. Brooke,
appearing to glance over the columns of the "Trumpet." "That's your
hobby, and you don't mind the expense."

"I thought the most expensive hobby in the world was standing for
Parliament," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "They said the last unsuccessful
candidate at Middlemarch--Giles, wasn't his name?--spent ten thousand
pounds and failed because he did not bribe enough. What a bitter
reflection for a man!"

"Somebody was saying," said the Rector, laughingly, "that East Retford
was nothing to Middlemarch, for bribery."

"Nothing of the kind," said Mr. Brooke. "The Tories bribe, you know:
Hawley and his set