among the patriots were the most exacting. I received letters containing threatening notices every day. You should also bear in mind that I shall have occasion to vacate my seat in Parliament, in the event of ulterior ministerial changes; and then I should have to contest Tipperary single-handed. I have already spent in contests a great deal more than any of my friends who (now) hold permanent offices, and it would be very unjustifiable in me to encumber my wife's property, in order to gratify my ambition. It is far more befitting that I should represent a borough like Dungarvon, than a county seventy miles long. But as far as I am concerned, make your mind easy about Tipperary: when I tell you that Lord Duncannon is contented, there is nothing to be feared."

He was desirous that the motives by which he was actuated should be generally understood, and these, in answer to some advice offered about the same time by his friend Mr. Staunton, he explained to him with equal candour.

"I have long since determined to leave Tipperary -I could not obtain any patronage from Government, and a great clamour was raised against me by the numerous expectants who had indeed a right to some

return for their exertions in my behalf. They did not believe my assurances that I could not do anything for them, and there was a strong feeling of resentment entertained amongst those to whom I should be obliged to look for my return. At public meetings in Tipperary, although I had successfully exerted myself in Parliament for the country, no votes of thanks were given me. Opposition was even made to my health being drunk at public dinners; and O'Connell, on one occasion, was compelled to defend me. I thought myself ill-used after having laboured so strenuously for the cause, and I knew the motive to which these affronts should be ascribed. It is of very little consequence to me in the House of Commons whether I represent a borough or a great county. In Parliament no sort of attention is paid to a man because he is member for this place or for that, his influence being entirely from his power of speaking, whatever it may be. I am not the natural representative of Tipperary. I have no property there by inheritance. I have only a life estate in Mrs. Sheil's property; would it be justifiable in me to stand contest after contest in a great county, and call again and again on my wife to renew the sacrifices in money she has already made? As I am con

nected with the Government, I must, whenever official changes take place, vacate my seat, and in Tipperary I should have, upon every move in the Government, to meet the whole gentry of the county who are arrayed against me. The consequence would be the dilapidation of my fortune, and I should be under the very painful necessity of reducing my family to privations which it would be most unreasonable in me to demand. These are the considerations which have swayed me in arriving at the determination to which I have come. I know that my friends call me niggard and miserable, but they do not reflect on the enormous expenditure which I cannot avoid, and make no allowance for the peculiarities of my position. You will do so, and I entertain very little doubt that, when you shall have read this letter, you will think that I have acted wisely and well. I have not left the county without a candidate in my place. A man will start in every way eligible."*

When the new Parliament met, most of the Whig Government reappeared in their places. Lord John Russell had been elected for the City of London, and Sir John Hobhouse for Nottingham; but the West Riding was no longer represented by Lords Morpeth and

* Letter dated 28th June, 1841.

Milton; Liverpool, Southampton, Dublin, and Belfast had each sent two Conservatives; Lord Howick had been displaced in Northumberland, and Sir De Lacy Evans in Westminster. In Ireland and Scotland, the Liberals maintained their preponderance; but in England and Wales they were far outnumbered. Upon the whole, they were in a minority of seventy-six. To the re-election of Mr. Shaw Lefevre as Speaker, no objection was made; but an amendment to the address moved by Mr. Stuart Wortley, recommending the removal of Ministers, was carried by 360 to 269. Early in September, the Administration of Sir Robert Peel was definitively constituted. As in that which it succeeded, a majority of the Cabinet were peers and sons of peers; and in the subordinate offices this complexion was much more observable. "Happening to

sit beside one of the ex-Ministers at dinner, soon after the writs for the new officials had been moved, I observed," said Sheil, "that Peel was filling up all his posts with Lords. And he is quite right,' said Lord

; 'he understands what he has to deal with, and how his majority can alone be kept together.' The esoteric principle of both Whigs and Tories is in this respect the same. They tolerate a few plebeians as working colleagues; but they think and feel towards

them rather as advocates whom they have retained than equals whom they are bound to recognise. This strong sense of a tendency to give undue preponderance in the Administration to persons of aristocratic lineage or connexions was not with him a temporary impression. He felt that in neither of the great parties in the State were personal ability, worth, or services recognised as constituting, in men of moderate fortune or plebeian birth, any real claim to high office. In the professions, he used to say, although there is often a good deal of favouritism, the sons of the people can hardly complain that as between classes the systematic injustice prevails; but in political life it is far otherwise; the House of Commons is more intensely susceptible to aristocratic prejudices than any assembly in the civilized world. Good taste prevents in general the open manifestation of these prejudices in a way noticeable by the "gallery," or that the public out of doors can ever be made thoroughly to understand. You cannot by any description make a West Indian comprehend the sensation of frost until he has endured it; the sensation for him exists not, nor can he sympathize with those who feel its painful and benumbing influence. But the reality is there nevertheless; to this cause, more than to any mere