ing vice. The knave thrives on the follies of the drunkard, and whole families may trace the commencement of their decay to the dire allurements of the public-house."

Of the Squire's characteristic generosity many instances are recorded. One morning when he had just received £100 from his publisher as a portion of his profits on the "South American Wanderings," he determined to distribute it to the poor in the immediate neighbourhood. This disinterested proposition was carried into execution the same day, the whole sum being disposed of without any regard to the creed of the recipients,-that they were "poor," being a sufficient plea to Waterton to recognise them as his neighbours and brethren. He died on the 27th May, 1865, universally esteemed, and "in love and charity with all men."

XII.

SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE,

BART., M.P.

The Littérateur and Statesman.

XII.

Truth, ever lovely since the world began,
The foe of tyrants and the friend of man."

THOMAS CAmpbell.

HE familiar axiom, "All's fair in love and war," is sometimes modernised by the addition of the brief but significant clause-" and politics." Certain it is, that many of the "men of light and leading," who regulate the choice of the free and independent electors in the several constituencies, put a most expansive interpetation on the "all," which they hold to be allowable in political warfare. Hence it is that the playful phrase, "the humours of a contested election," often covers a round of degrading incidents which might more truthfully be described as "the horrors of a contested election." The abolition of the hustings, the introduction of vote by ballot, and other lesser changes in the mode of conducting elections, introduced during the present generation, are pretty generally recognised as improvements; but, it must be confessed, that an ancient custom, conventionally known as "the pot calling the kettle," still flourishes with as great an intensity as if all our political leaders had been brought up and nurtured in that locality where they speak the plainest English, and sell the best fish in all Christendom.

The bundles of words spoken during the last general

election were indeed scorching firebrands; the Eatanswill Gazette was for the time being revived, and very much so too, in town and country; and the vituperative employment by all parties, of the twin sisters, Calumny and Misrepresentation, was about the only vestige of brotherly unity which then lingered in this United Kingdom.

It is therefore no small testimony to the worth of Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke to find that in such an hour, the leading journal of the political party against whom he has been unflinchingly opposed, ever since he stepped into the arena of public life, could write: "Throughout the whole of this crisis he has acted as the loyal spokesman of a political section, and has been aiming not at his individual advancement, but at the promotion of the cause which has found in him a champion of ability and self-sacrificing zeal.” The Standard's tribute is no less creditable to journalism than well deserved by Sir Charles, and its writer has happily emphasized an hereditary characteristic of the Dilkes, by the vigorous stroke, "a champion of ability and self sacrificing-zeal.”

"Self-sacrificing-zeal" inspired the intrepid enthusiasm of Paul and Peter Wentworth what time Good Queen Bess governed this realm. Hallam, the historian, describes these ancestors of Sir Charles Dilke as "the bold, plain-spoken, and honest Wentworths,” and adds, "They were the most undaunted assertors of civil liberty in this reign."

In 1575 Sir Peter Wentworth took occasion to address the House in defence of its rights and privileges, and a quotation from his speech upon the occasion will not be without interest.