Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон
Paul Clifford — Complete
“I am very glad indeed,” said the royal personage, “to see Mr. Brandon looking so much better. Never was the crown in greater want of his services; and if rumour speak true, they will soon be required in another department of his profession.”
Brandon bowed, and answered,—
“So please your royal highness, they will always be at the command of a king from whore I have experienced such kindness, in any capacity for which his Majesty may deem them fitting.”
“It is true, then!” said his royal highness, significantly. “I congratulate you! The quiet dignity of the bench must seem to you a great change after a career so busy and restless.”
“I fear I shall feel it so at first, your royal highness,” answered Brandon, “for I like even the toil of my profession; and at this moment, when I am in full practice, it more than ever—But” (checking himself at once) “his Majesty’s wishes, and my satisfaction in complying with them, are more than sufficient to remove any momentary regret I might otherwise have felt in quitting those toils which have now become to me a second nature.”
“It is possible,” rejoined the prince, “that his Majesty took into consideration the delicate state of health which, in common with the whole public, I grieve to see the papers have attributed to one of the most distinguished ornaments of the bar.”
“So please your royal highness,” answered Brandon, coolly, and with a smile which the most piercing eye could not have believed the mask to the agony then gnawing at his nerves, “it is the interest of my rivals to exaggerate the little ailments of a weak constitution. I thank Providence that I am now entirely recovered; and at no time of my life have I been less unable to discharge—so far as my native and mental, incapacities will allow—the duties of any occupation, however arduous. Nay, as the brute grows accustomed to the mill, so have I grown wedded to business; and even the brief relaxation I have now allowed myself seems to me rather irksome than pleasurable.”
“I rejoice to hear you speak thus,” answered his royal highness, warmly; “and I trust for many years, and,” added he, in a lower tone, “in the highest chamber of the senate, that we may profit by your talents. The times are those in which many occasions occur that oblige all true friends of the Constitution to quit minor employment for that great constitutional one that concerns us all, the highest and the meanest; and” (the royal voice sank still lower) “I feel justified in assuring you that the office of chief-justice alone is not considered by his Majesty as a sufficient reward for your generous sacrifice of present ambition to the difficulties of government.”
Brandon’s proud heart swelled, and that moment the veriest pains of hell would scarcely have been felt.
While the aspiring schemer was thus agreeably engaged, Mauleverer, sliding through the crowd with that grace which charmed every one, old and young, and addressing to all he knew some lively or affectionate remark, made his way to the dancers, among whom he had just caught a glimpse of Lucy. “I wonder,” he thought, “whom she is dancing with. I hope it is that ridiculous fellow, Mossop, who tells a good story against himself; or that handsome ass, Belmont, who looks at his own legs, instead of seeming to have eyes for no one but his partner. Ah! if Tarquin had but known women as well as I do, he would have had no reason to be rough with Lucretia. ‘T is a thousand pities that experience comes, in women as in the world, just when it begins to be no longer of use to us!”
As he made these moral reflections, Mauleverer gained the dancers, and beheld Lucy listening, with downcast eyes and cheeks that evidently blushed, to a young man whom Mauleverer acknowledged at once to be one of the best-looking fellows he had ever seen. The stranger’s countenance, despite an extreme darkness of complexion, was, to be sure, from the great regularity of the features, rather effeminate; but, on the other hand, his figure, though slender and graceful, betrayed to an experienced eye an extraordinary proportion of sinew and muscle; and even the dash of effeminacy in the countenance was accompanied by so manly and frank an air, and was so perfectly free from all coxcombry or self-conceit, that it did not in the least decrease the prepossessing effect of his appearance. An angry and bitter pang shot across that portion of Mauleverer’s frame which the earl thought fit, for want of another name, to call his heart. “How cursedly pleased she looks!” muttered he. “By Heaven! that stolen glance under the left eyelid, dropped as suddenly as it is raised; and he—ha! how firmly he holds that little hand! I think I see him paddle with it; and then the dog’s earnest, intent look,—and she all blushes, though she dare not look up to meet his gaze, feeling it by intuition. Oh, the demure, modest, shamefaced hypocrite! How silent she is! She can prate enough to me! I would give my promised garter if she would but talk to him. Talk, talk, laugh, prattle, only simper, in God’s name, and I shall be happy. But that bashful, blushing silence,—it is insupportable. Thank Heaven, the dance is over! Thank Heaven, again! I have not felt such pains since the last nightmare I had after dining with her father!”
With a face all smiles, but with a mien in which more dignity than he ordinarily assumed was worn, Mauleverer now moved towards Lucy, who was leaning on her partner’s arm. The earl, who had ample tact where his consummate selfishness did not warp it, knew well how to act the lover, without running ridiculously into the folly of seeming to play the hoary dangler. He sought rather to be lively than sentimental; and beneath the wit to conceal the suitor.
Having paid, then, with a careless gallantry his first compliments, he entered into so animated a conversation, interspersed with so many naive yet palpably just observations on the characters present, that perhaps he had never appeared to more brilliant advantage. At length, as the music was about to recommence, Mauleverer, with a careless glance at Lucy’s partner, said, “Will Miss Brandon now allow me the agreeable duty of conducting her to her father?”
“I believe,” answered Lucy, and her voice suddenly became timid, “that, according to the laws of the rooms, I am engaged to this gentleman for another dance.”
Clifford, in an assured and easy tone, replied in assent.
As he spoke. Mauleverer honoured him with a more accurate survey than he had hitherto bestowed on him; and whether or not there was any expression of contempt or superciliousness in the survey, it was sufficient to call up the indignant blood to Clifford’s cheek. Returning the look with interest, he said to Lucy, “I believe, Miss Brandon, that the dance is about to begin;” and Lucy, obeying the hint, left the aristocratic Mauleverer to his own meditations.
At that moment the master of the ceremonies came bowing by, half afraid to address so great a person as Mauleverer, but willing to show his respect by the profoundness of his salutation.
“Aha! my dear Mr. ———-!” said the earl, holding out both his hands to the Lycurgus of the rooms; “how are you? Pray can you inform me who that young man is, now dancing with Miss Brandon?”
“It is—let me see-oh! it is a Captain Clifford, my lord! a very fine young man, my lord! Has your lordship never met him?”
“Never! Who is he? One under your more especial patronage?” said the earl, smiling.
“Nay, indeed!” answered the master of the ceremonies, with a simper of gratification; “I scarcely know who he is yet; the captain only made his appearance here to-night for the first time. He came with two other gentlemen,—ah! there they are!” and he pointed the earl’s scrutinizing attention to the elegant forms of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson and Mr. Ned Pepper, just emerging from the card-rooms. The swagger of the latter gentleman was so peculiarly important that Mauleverer, angry as he was, could scarcely help laughing. The master of the ceremonies noted the earl’s countenance, and remarked that “that fine-looking man seemed disposed to give himself airs.”
“Judging from the gentleman’s appearance,” said the earl, dryly (Ned’s face, to say truth, did betoken his affection for the bottle), “I should imagine that he was much more accustomed to give himself thorough draughts!”
“Ah!” renewed the arbiter elegantiarum, who had not heard Mauleverer’s observation, which was uttered in a very low voice,—“ah! they seem real dashers!”
“Dashers!” repeated Mauleverer; “true, haberdashers!” Long Ned now, having in the way of his profession acquitted himself tolerably well at the card-table, thought he had purchased the right to parade himself through the rooms, and show the ladies what stuff a Pepper could be made of.
Leaning with his left hand on Tomlinson’s arm, and employing the right in fanning himself furiously with his huge chapeau bras, the lengthy adventurer stalked slowly along, now setting out one leg jauntily, now the other, and ogling “the ladies” with a kind of Irish look,—namely, a look between a wink and a stare.
Released from the presence of Clifford, who kept a certain check on his companions, the apparition of Ned became glaringly conspicuous; and wherever he passed, a universal whisper succeeded.
“Who can he be?” said the widow Matemore. “‘T is a droll creature; but what a head of hair!”
“For my part,” answered the spinster Sneerall, “I think he is a linen-draper in disguise; for I heard him talk to his companion of ‘tape.’”
“Well, well,” thought Mauleverer, “it would be but kind to seek out Brandon, and hint to him in what company his niece seems to have fallen!” And so thinking, he glided to the corner where, with a gray-headed old politician, the astute lawyer was conning the affairs of Europe.
In the interim the second dance had ended, and Clifford was conducting Lucy to her seat, each charmed with the other, when he found himself abruptly tapped on the back, and turning round in alarm,—for such taps were not unfamiliar to him,—he saw the cool countenance of Long Ned, with one finger sagaciously laid beside the nose.
“How now?” said Clifford, between his ground teeth; “did I not tell thee to put that huge bulk of thine as far from me as possible?”
“Humph!” granted Ned; “if these are my thanks, I may as well keep my kindness to myself; but know you, my kid, that Lawyer Brandon is here, peering through the crowd at this very moment, in order to catch a glimpse of that woman’s face of thine.”
“Ha!” answered Clifford, in a very quick tone; “begone, then! I will meet you without the rooms immediately.” Clifford now turned to his partner, and bowing very low, in reality to hide his face from those sharp eyes which had once seen it in the court of Justice Burnflat, said: “I trust, madam, I shall have the honour to meet you again. Is it, if I may be allowed to ask, with your celebrated uncle that you are staying, or—”
“With my father,” answered Lucy, concluding the sentence Clifford had left unfinished; “but my uncle has been with us, though I fear he leaves us to-morrow.”
Clifford’s eyes sparkled; he made no answer, but bowing again, receded into the crowd and disappeared. Several times that night did the brightest eyes in Somersetshire rove anxiously round the rooms in search of our hero; but he was seen no more.
It was on the stairs that Clifford encountered his comrades; taking an arm of each, he gained the door without any adventure worth noting, save that, being kept back by the crowd for a few moments, the moralizing Augustus Tomlinson, who honoured the moderate Whigs by enrolling himself among their number, took up, pour passer le temps, a tall gold-headed cane, and weighing it across his finger with a musing air, said, “Alas! among our supporters we often meet heads as heavy, but of what a different metal!” The crowd now permitting, Augustus was walking away with his companions, and, in that absence of mind characteristic of philosophers, unconsciously bearing with him the gold-headed object of his reflection, when a stately footman, stepping up to him, said, “Sir, my cane!”
“Cane, fellow!” said Tomlinson. “Ah, I am so absent! Here is thy cane. Only think of my carrying off the man’s cane, Ned! Ha, ha!”
“Absent indeed!” grunted a knowing chairman, watching the receding figures of the three gentlemen; “body o’ me! but it was the cane that was about to be absent!”
CHAPTER XVI
Whackum. My dear rogues, dear boys, Bluster and Dingboy! you are the bravest fellows that ever scoured yet!
—SUADWELL: Scourers.
Cato, the Thessalian, was wont to say that some things may be done unjustly, that many things may be done justly.
—LORD BACON (being a justification of every rascality).
Although our three worthies had taken unto themselves a splendid lodging in Milsom Street, which, to please Ned, was over a hairdresser’s shop, yet, instead of returning thither, or repairing to such taverns as might seem best befitting their fashion and garb, they struck at once from the gay parts of the town, and tarried not till they reached a mean-looking alehouse in a remote suburb.
The door was opened to them by an elderly lady; and Clifford, stalking before his companions into an apartment at the back of the house, asked if the other gentlemen were come yet.
“No,” returned the dame. “Old Mr. Bags came in about ten minutes ago; but hearing more work might be done, he went out again.”
“Bring the lush and the pipes, old blone!” cried Ned, throwing himself on a bench; “we are never at a loss for company!”
“You, indeed, never can be, who are always inseparably connected with the object of your admiration,” said Tomlin, son, dryly, and taking up an old newspaper. Ned, who, though choleric, was a capital fellow, and could bear a joke on himself, smiled, and drawing forth a little pair of scissors, began trimming his nails.
“Curse me,” said he, after a momentary silence, “if this is not a devilish deal pleasanter than playing the fine gentleman in that great room, with a rose in one’s button-hole! What say you, Master Lovett?”
Clifford (as henceforth, despite his other aliases, we shall denominate our hero), who had thrown himself at full length on a bench at the far end of the room, and who seemed plunged into a sullen revery, now looked up for a moment, and then, turning round and presenting the dorsal part of his body to Long Ned, muttered, “Fish!”
“Harkye, Master Lovett!” said Long Ned, colouring. “I don’t know what has come over you of late; but I would have you to learn that gentlemen are entitled to courtesy and polite behaviour; and so, d’ ye see, if you ride your high horse upon me, splice my extremities if I won’t have satisfaction!”
“Hist, man! be quiet,” said Tomlinson, philosophically, snuffing the candles,—
“‘For companions to quarrel,
Is extremely immoral.’
“Don’t you see that the captain is in a revery? What good man ever loves to be interrupted in his meditations? Even Alfred the Great could not bear it! Perhaps at this moment, with the true anxiety of a worthy chief, the captain is designing something for our welfare!”
“Captain indeed!” muttered Long Ned, darting a wrathful look at Clifford, who had not deigned to pay any attention to Mr. Pepper’s threat; “for my part I cannot conceive what was the matter with us when we chose this green slip of the gallows-tree for our captain of the district. To be sure, he did very well at first, and that robbery of the old lord was not ill-planned; but lately—”
“Nay, nay,” quoth Augustus, interrupting the gigantic grumbler; “the nature of man is prone to discontent. Allow that our present design of setting up the gay Lothario, and trying our chances at Bath for an heiress, is owing as much to Lovett’s promptitude as to our invention.”
“And what good will come of it?” returned Ned, as he lighted his pipe; “answer me that. Was I not dressed as fine as a lord, and did not I walk three times up and down that great room without being a jot the better for it?”
“Ah! but you know not how many secret conquests you may have made. You cannot win a prize by looking upon it.”
“Humph!” grunted Ned, applying himself discontentedly to the young existence of his pipe.
“As for the captain’s partner,” renewed Tomlinson, who maliciously delighted in exciting the jealousy of the handsome “tax-collector,”—for that was the designation by which Augustus thought proper to style himself and companions,—“I will turn Tory if she be not already half in love with him; and did you hear the old gentleman who cut into our rubber say what a fine fortune she had? Faith, Ned, it is lucky for us two that we all agreed to go shares in our marriage speculations; I fancy the worthy captain will think it a bad bargain for himself.”
“I am not so sure of that, Mr. Tomlinson,” said Long Ned, sourly eying his comrade. “Some women may be caught by a smooth skin and a showy manner; but real masculine beauty,—eyes, colour, and hair,—Mr. Tomlinson, must ultimately make its way; so hand me the brandy, and cease your jaw.”
“Well, well,” said Tomlinson, “I’ll give you a toast,—‘The prettiest girl in England,’ and that’s Miss Brandon!”
“You shall give no such toast, sir!” said Clifford, starting from the bench. “What the devil is Miss Brandon to you? And now, Ned,” seeing that the tall hero looked on him with an unfavourable aspect, “here’s my hand; forgive me if I was uncivil. Tomlinson will tell you, in a maxim, men are changeable. Here’s to your health; and it shall not be my fault, gentlemen, if we have not a merry evening!”
This speech, short as it was, met with great applause from the two friends; and Clifford, as president, stationed himself in a huge chair at the head of the table. Scarcely had he assumed this dignity, before the door opened, and half-a-dozen of the gentlemen confederates trooped somewhat noisily into the apartment.
“Softly, softly, messieurs,” said the president, recovering all his constitutional gayety, yet blending it with a certain negligent command,—“respect for the chair, if you please! ‘T is the way with all assemblies where the public purse is a matter of deferential interest!”
“Hear him!” cried Tomlinson.
“What, my old friend Bags!” said the president; “you have not come empty-handed, I will swear; your honest face is like the table of contents to the good things in your pockets!”
“Ah, Captain Clifford,” said the veteran, groaning, and shaking his reverend head, “I have seen the day when there was not a lad in England forked so largely, so comprehensively-like, as I did. But, as King Lear says at Common Garden, ‘I be’s old now!’”
“But your zeal is as youthful as ever, my fine fellow,” said the captain, soothingly; “and if you do not clean out the public as thoroughly as heretofore, it is not the fault of your inclinations.”
“No, that it is not!” cried the “tax-collectors” unanimously.
“And if ever a pocket is to be picked neatly, quietly, and effectually,” added the complimentary Clifford, “I do not know to this day, throughout the three kingdoms, a neater, quieter, and more effective set of fingers than Old Bags’s!”
The veteran bowed disclaimingly, and took his seat among the heartfelt good wishes of the whole assemblage.
“And now, gentlemen,” said Clifford, as soon as the revellers had provided themselves with their wonted luxuries, potatory and fumous, “let us hear your adventures, and rejoice our eyes with their produce. The gallant Attie shall begin; but first, a toast,—‘May those who leap from a hedge never leap from a tree!’”
This toast being drunk with enthusiastic applause, Fighting Attie began the recital of his little history.
“You sees, Captain,” said he, putting himself in a martial position, and looking Clifford full in the face, “that I’m not addicted to much blarney. Little cry and much wool is my motto. At ten o’clock A.M. saw the enemy—in the shape of a Doctor of Divinity. ‘Blow me,’ says I to Old Bags, ‘but I ‘ll do his reverence!’ ‘Blow me,’ says Old Bags, ‘but you sha’ n’t,—you’ll have us scragged if you touches the Church.’ ‘My grandmother!’ says I. Bags tells the pals,—all in a fuss about it,—what care I? I puts on a decent dress, and goes to the doctor as a decayed soldier wot supplies the shops in the turning line. His reverence—a fat jolly dog as ever you see—was at dinner over a fine roast pig; so I tells him I have some bargains at home for him. Splice me, if the doctor did not think he had got a prize; so he puts on his boots, and he comes with me to my house. But when I gets him into a lane, out come my pops. ‘Give up, Doctor,’ says I; ‘others must share the goods of the Church now.’ You has no idea what a row he made; but I did the thing, and there’s an end on’t.”
“Bravo, Attie!” cried Clifford; and the word echoed round the board. Attie put a purse on the table, and the next gentleman was called to confession.
“It skills not, boots not,” gentlest of readers, to record each of the narratives that now followed one another. Old Bags, in especial, preserved his well-earned reputation by emptying six pockets, which had been filled with every possible description of petty valuables. Peasant and prince appeared alike to have come under his hands; and perhaps the good old man had done in the town more towards effecting an equality of goods among different ranks than all the Reformers, from Cornwall to Carlisle. Yet so keen was his appetite for the sport that the veteran appropriator absolutely burst into tears at not having “forked more.”
“I love a warm-hearted enthusiasm,” cried Clifford, handling the movables, while he gazed lovingly on the ancient purloiner. “May new cases never teach us to forget Old Bags!”
As soon as this “sentiment” had been duly drunk, and Mr. Bagshot had dried his tears and applied himself to his favourite drink,—which, by the way, was “blue ruin,”—the work of division took place. The discretion and impartiality of the captain in this arduous part of his duty attracted universal admiration; and each gentleman having carefully pouched his share, the youthful president hemmed thrice, and the society became aware of a purposed speech.
“Gentlemen!” began Clifford,—and his main supporter, the sapient Augustus, shouted out, “Hear!”—“gentlemen, you all know that when some months ago you were pleased, partly at the instigation of Gentleman George—God bless him!—partly from the exaggerated good opinion expressed of me by my friends, to elect me to the high honour of the command of this district, I myself was by no means ambitious to assume that rank, which I knew well was far beyond my merits, and that responsibility which I knew with equal certainty was too weighty for my powers. Your voices, however, overruled my own; and as Mr. Muddlepud, the great metaphysician, in that excellent paper, ‘The Asinaeum,’ was wont to observe, ‘the susceptibilities, innate, extensible, incomprehensible, and eternal,’ existing in my bosom, were infinitely more powerful than the shallow suggestions of reason,—that ridiculous thing which all wise men and judicious Asinaeans sedulously stifle.”
“Plague take the man! what is he talking about?” said Long Ned, who we have seen was of an envious temper, in a whisper to Old Bags. Old Bags shook his head.
“In a word, gentlemen,” renewed Clifford, “your kindness overpowered me; and despite my cooler inclinations, I accepted your flattering proposal. Since then I have endeavoured, so far as I have been able, to advance your interests; I have kept a vigilant eye upon all my neighbours; I have, from county to county, established numerous correspondents; and our exertions have been carried on with a promptitude that has ensured success.
“Gentlemen, I do not wish to boast; but on these nights of periodical meetings, when every quarter brings us to go halves,—when we meet in private to discuss the affairs of the public, show our earnings as it were in privy council, and divide them amicably as it were in the Cabinet [‘Hear! hear!’ from Mr. Tomlinson],—it is customary for your captain for the time being to remind you of his services, engage your pardon for his deficiencies, and your good wishes for his future exertions. Gentlemen, has it ever been said of Paul Lovett that he heard of a prize and forgot to tell you of his news? [‘Never! never!’ loud cheering.] Has it ever been said of him that he sent others to seize the booty, and stayed at home to think how it should be spent? [‘No! no!’ repeated cheers.] Has it ever been said of him that he took less share than his due of your danger, and more of your guineas? [Cries in the negative, accompanied with vehement applause.] Gentlemen, I thank you for these flattering and audible testimonials in my favour; but the points on which I have dwelt, however necessary to my honour, would prove but little for my merits; they might be worthy notice in your comrade, you demand more subtle duties in your chief. Gentlemen, has it ever been said of Paul Lovett that he sent out brave men on forlorn hopes; that he hazarded your own heads by rash attempts in acquiring pictures of King George’s; that zeal, in short, was greater in him than caution, or that his love of a quid (A guinea) ever made him neglectful of your just aversion to a quod? (A prison) [Unanimous cheering.]
“Gentlemen, since I have had the honour to preside over your welfare, Fortune, which favours the bold, has not been unmerciful to you! But three of our companions have been missed from our peaceful festivities. One, gentlemen, I myself expelled from our corps for ungentlemanlike practices; he picked pockets of fogles, (handkerchiefs)—it was a vulgar employment. Some of you, gentlemen, have done the same for amusement; Jack Littlefork did it for occupation. I expostulated with him in public and in private; Mr. Pepper cut his society; Mr. Tomlinson read him an essay on Real Greatness of Soul: all was in vain. He was pumped by the mob for the theft of a bird’s-eye wipe. The fault I had borne with,—the detection was unpardonable; I expelled him. Who’s here so base as would be a fogle-hunter? If any, speak; for him have I offended! Who’s here so rude as would not be a gentleman? If any, speak; for him have I offended! I pause for a reply! What, none! then none have I offended. [Loud cheers.] Gentlemen, I may truly add, that I have done no more to Jack Littlefork than you should do to Paul Lovett! The next vacancy in our ranks was occasioned by the loss of Patrick Blunderbull. You know, gentlemen, the vehement exertions that I made to save that misguided creature, whom I had made exertions no less earnest to instruct. But he chose to swindle under the name of the ‘Honourable Captain Smico;’ the Peerage gave him the lie at once; his case was one of aggravation, and he was so remarkably ugly that he ‘created no interest.’ He left us for a foreign exile; and if as a man I lament him, I confess to you, gentlemen, as a ‘tax-collector’ I am easily consoled.
“Our third loss must be fresh in your memory. Peter Popwell, as bold a fellow as ever breathed, is no more! [A movement in the assembly.] Peace be with him! He died on the field of battle; shot dead by a Scotch Colonel, whom poor Popwell thought to rob of nothing with an empty pistol. His memory, gentlemen,—in solemn silence!
“These make the catalogue of our losses,” resumed the youthful chief, so soon as the “red cup had crowned the memory” of Peter Popwell; “I am proud, even in sorrow, to think that the blame of those losses rests not with me. And now, friends and followers! Gentlemen of the Road, the Street, the Theatre, and the Shop! Prigs, Tobymen, and Squires of the Cross! according to the laws of our Society, I resign into your hands that power which for two quarterly terms you have confided to mine, ready to sink into your ranks as a comrade, nor unwilling to renounce the painful honour I have borne,—borne with much infirmity, it is true, but at least with a sincere desire to serve that cause with which you have intrusted me.”
So saying, the captain descended from his chair amidst the most uproarious applause; and as soon as the first burst had partially subsided, Augustus Tomlinson rising, with one hand in his breeches’ pocket and the other stretched out, said,—
“Gentlemen, I move that Paul Lovett be again chosen as our captain for the ensuing term of three months. [Deafening cheers.] Much might I say about his surpassing merits; but why dwell upon that which is obvious? Life is short! Why should speeches be long? Our lives, perhaps, are shorter than the lives of other men; why should not our harangues be of a suitable brevity? Gentlemen, I shall say but one word in favour of my excellent friend,—of mine, say I? ay, of mine, of yours. He is a friend to all of us! A prime minister is not more useful to his followers and more burdensome to the public than I am proud to say is—Paul Lovett. [Loud plaudits.] What I shall urge in his favour is simply this: the man whom opposite parties unite in praising must have supereminent merit. Of all your companions, gentlemen, Paul Lovett is the only man who to that merit can advance a claim. [Applause.] You all know, gentlemen, that our body has long been divided into two factions,—each jealous of the other, each desirous of ascendancy, and each emulous which shall put the greatest number of fingers into the public pie. In the language of the vulgar, the one faction would be called ‘swindlers,’ and the other ‘highwaymen.’ I, gentlemen, who am fond of finding new names for things and for persons, and am a bit of a politician, call the one Whigs, and the other Tories. [Clamorous cheering.] Of the former body I am esteemed no uninfluential member; of the latter faction Mr. Bags is justly considered the most shining ornament. Mr. Attie and Mr. Edward Pepper can scarcely be said to belong entirely to either; they unite the good qualities of both. ‘British compounds’ some term them; I term them Liberal Aristocrats! [Cheers.] I now call upon you all, Whig, or Swindler, Tory, or Highwayman, ‘British Compounds,’ or Liberal Aristocrats,—I call upon you all to name me one man whom you will all agree to elect.”
