could make his own terms with the steward: but he found himself rather mistaken; the mask had, in the mean, fallen off, and discovered a part of his carbuncled face. His grand entertainment at the Summer-House (where the Rising Sun shone with illustrious splendour*) was justly regarded by those who had any sense of propriety, and by his own private creditors, as an insult and want of honesty; his intended dereliction of his old constituents was rightly construed into a want of gratitude; and happy would it have been for the tenants at large if the electors of the Westminster Arms had given him a defeat at the general election, and reduced him to the dunghill whence he sprang. He would then have had no opportunity of misapplying the public money in the subversion of their dearest rights, as we shall hereafter have to shew the reader that he did.

When called upon either by creditors or acquaintance, (for such a man can have no friends,) to repay former debts or favours, his current coin was ready wit, which may be pleasing at

* Vide Frontispiece.

times, but is quite the reverse with tradesmen whose families are in want of ready cash.

One of the puns, with which he put off an acquaintance, who came to ask him a favour, is so good, that, as it is not altogether foreign to our purpose of describing the Squire and his party, we shall think its wit will prove a sufficient apology to the reader for introducing it.

A certain musical friend of the musical Mrs. Caress-all, who was remarkable for turning old Italian musical compositions into new English ones, as the Jews deal by second-hand clothes, and make them, as they would have us believe, better than new; had opened a musical-not a shop-no, a saloon! He had transposed a shop into a saloon, for the purpose of vending the transmigrations of Italian composers into his own Irish body. But the Squire's party had no sooner come into power than, knowing them to be a wet administration, he formed the idea of uniting Bacchus with Apollo, that is, of adding the wine to his musical trade. With this view, he called upon his old acquaintance Merryman, and solicited not only his own custom, but his interest with his friends, in the bottle way. Mer

ryman replied that as for himself he had not paid his wine-merchant, who had had faith in him for seventeen years past, and that he could not leave him till he had paid his bill, which would be, God knew when! As for his friends, he believed they were most of them in the same condition. But although their custom was out of the question, he would give him, if he thought proper to accept it, a mollo to put on his sign, which might prove of great service to him in his double trade. The composer, I beg pardon—I should have said the transposer, being aware of the service which Merryman's wit had been of to himself in his own double dealings, thankfully accepted the offer.-" Well then," said Merryman," put on your sign-board these words:“ *****, Importer of Music, and Composer of Wine."

Whether through the force of this raillery, or the disappointment of such expected good customers, the wine trade came to nothing, and Merryman had, perhaps, the merit of being unthinkingly conducive to the health of some of the Lord's tenants, which must have suffered more from these compositions denominated

Wine, than from any musical composition, which, honey-like, was industriously pilfered from every flower.

But we come now to the grand show-the general election, in which we shall see Mr. Merryman painted at full length, and corruption unblushingly showing its deformed visage.

CHAPTER XI.

THE HUMOURS OF POPULAR ELECTIONS.--- GRINNING THROUGH A HORSE-COLLAR, AND SPECIMENS OF THE VULGAR TONGUE ADAPTED TO THE USE OF

GENTLEMEN.

MR. Locke, in his treatise on Government, ranks it among those branches of trust in the executive magistrate which, according to his notions, amount to a dissolution of the government, if he employs the force, treasure, and offices of the society to corrupt the representatives, or openly to pre-engage the electors, and prescribe what manner of persons shall be chosen. For thus to regulate candidates and electors, and new-model the ways of election ;-what is it, says he, but to cut up the government by the roots, and poison the very fountain of public security? What else, indeed, is it? If the society is divided into three estates, and it is death on the lowest to infringe upon the existence of the highest; it