AMATEUR DEMAGOGUES.

A TRUE ACCOUNT OF A FOOLISH FROLIC.

Ir was a bright May morning. The sun would intrude in spite of the window-blind. It was nearly eight o'clock and "falsely luxurious" (as Thomson observes in a rhapsody on early rising which he wrote in bed), I showed no disposition to leave my couch, nor should I at the time have asked, as Goethe did when dying, for "more light." So I merely turned my head to the wall, and was falling asleep fast, when there came the usual matutinal knocking at the door, and the servant (or "slavey" as we always termed her) let my boots fall heavily on the outside, and then asked, in a tone which always appeared to me peculiarly insulting," Are you going to chapel this morning, sir?" "No," I replied, in a very firm manner, and as if I derived some secret consolation from the thought that the "slavey" wished me to do so, and that I was therefore opposing and disappointing the fondest desire of her heart. There was something very decisive in the tone in which I had uttered the monosyllable, for though she was wont on some occasions to repeat the knock and remind me that I had specially enjoined her to call me, and said that I must be in chapel next morning, she now walked straight away from my door down the passage, and before she had descended the staircase, I was dreaming that I was arraigned before a grave Synod of Dons in the common room, and for " my open defiance of college discipline manifested by non-attendance at chapel," rusticated for a term. Homer says dreams come from Jove; if so, I wish Jupiter had favoured me with some vision more beatific than a glimpse of the Olympus of the common room, with its frowning potentates trying an unfortunate mortal. But these troubled dreamings did not afflict me as long as they did John Bunyan, and, therefore, my account of them may be much more brief; for just as I had commenced a most forcible appeal to the head of the house, who was sitting on this glaring case of undergraduate insubordination, there came another thundering knock at my door, and I was cut short in one of the best sentences that in the history of oratory has ever been interrupted.

"Come and breakfast with me, old fellow," shouted Walter Henringham in stentorian tones. It was in vain that I murmured something about being "seedy," and turned on my pillow. "Jump up, lazy," was the merciless reply. An immediate attempt to pull off counterpane and blanket followed; and on making an effort to keep my bed-clothes on me, my robust friend, who had already been to morning chapel, and was determined not only soon to have his own breakfast, but to compel me to join him in it, took a firm hold of my wrist and drew me, amid many protestations that I would get up immediately, fairly out of bed. He then sprang laughing out of the room, followed by a Wellington boot, the first missile I could seize, and which in my fury I had levelled at him. The "telum imbelle sine ictu" struck against the door which slammed after him, and rebounded into a large tub of cold water placed in the corner for my accustomed morning ablution. This accident might have still more incensed a man with a less abundant supply of shoe-leather than I

possessed; but I belonged to the class of (üvýμides 'Axaioi) wellgreaved Grecians spoken of in the Iliad. A bootmaker in the town, who had at first supplied my freshman wants, had, at the end of six months, sent in his "little account;" and on my showing no disposition to defray it, asked for an order. Of course I gave him one. He called at the end of the next month, when I gave him another. His visits for some time were monthly, and he received an order on each occasion. They became more frequent, and every fortnight I added to my increasing stock a pair of gaudy patent-leathers or Wellingtons. His calls became hebdomadal, and rather than defray his "little account," now swollen to a very large one, I continued to order "every variety of boot and shoe."

Hence my bedroom and half my study were ornamented with a goodly array; and I soon selected from my infinite stock a dry pair, which, after my lustrations and decorations, were completed to my satisfaction, I drew on, and walked into my sitting-room, where friend Henringham was amusing himself by drawing a caricature of my tutor at the bottom of a long page of Latin prose, which I had copied very carefully the evening before. "I wish you 'd be quiet, old fellow," I meekly observed. "I shall have to copy that again for Sincox." Henringham uttered a brief condemnation of Sincox, which it is needless to repeat, and reminded me that I could pay young Sniggs, the confectioner's apprentice, to copy it, and then renewed his invitation to breakfast. "Stapledon and Travers are both coming, and we are to have a team afterwards. Come along." "I can't show in quad," I said. "I've not been at chapel for some mornings, and I must put on an æger,' and a doctor, too, or I shall get rusticated. You had better bring Stapledon and Travers here." This matter was soon settled. I ordered in a supply of beefsteaks, fricassee chicken, sausages, &c., adequate to the appetite of any six or eight bargemen. My guests soon arrived, and a small portion of the substantial provender, under which the table groaned, was consumed with great appetite by my three friends and their invalid host. We next adjourned, weeds in mouth, and coats and rugs over our arm, to the stable-yard of Cheesle, with whom we had most of us long accounts, where we ordered a team in which the celebrated mare Fanny was to be the leader. A "cad" was sent to Travers' rooms in college for his cornet-à-piston, and after smoking another weed, and drinking two bottles of bitter-beer with Cheesle, while the team was in preparation, a stable-boy took the aforesaid leader Fanny a mile out of the town, and Henringham took the ribands and we ascended the trap. We drove gaily out, pluming ourselves much on the fact, that the majority of our acquaintance were at this moment at lecture, and a few agonizing in the schools. How the sun glittered on the tranquil pinnacles and spires we were fast leaving behind us; and when we crossed the bridge, and paid the turnpike, and put on the celebrated leader Fanny a few hundred yards farther on, Henringham cracked his whip, Travers gave a blast with his cornet, and away we went at a beautiful pace, and the world all before us. "Where to choose we felt but little difficulty, for over fifteen miles of true quiet English landscape, we determined to drive to a country town, where we could get a very good dinner, and possibly have a lark. At any rate, whatever the frolic might be, such a fine day, and such a good team, and such jolly fellows of one's own set," and a whole day away from chapel, and hall, and lectures, aye, and even wine parties, was no small luxury in itself.

We baited our horses once-ourselves very frequently-while the steady decrease in the cigars of our well-filled cases was terrific. Travers played stunning polkas and waltzes on the cornet; Stapledon sang a song with a chorus, in which we all joined. Henringham made the wheeler do his work, and not leave all to Fanny, by an occasional application of the whip, which process he termed "unbuttoning his waistcoat," and I said as many good things as is my wont. We were greeted in each village by the barking of curs, the shouting of small boys, and the smiles of barmaids, housemaids, and scullery-maids. A very merry party we were, and a very pleasant drive we had.

Arrived at Beadenham on the Hill, with no particular incident save that of Henringham's well-nigh driving the mare Fanny into the gaudy and tempting window of a confectioner at the corner of a street, we put up our horses, ordered dinner, strolled about the town, played a game of billiards on a very bad table, against the antiquated cushions of which the balls fell with a heavy thump, and rolled slowly away a few inches, and the cloth of which Travers tore as he was violently attempting a canon, which he declared he could make a certainty on his father's table in the country. Travers was the son of a country gentleman, who was a county magistrate, a man of some thousands per annum, and therefore of some consideration, and he was a trifle fond of talking of the governor's billiard table, and the governor's stud, and the governor's cellar. "Solvuntur risu tabulæ," I shouted, as we all burst out laughing at the small rent made by the end of our friend's cue. Travers was in a tremor; he did not fancy the notion of paying the usual fine for such a mishap.The bell was rung, shouts of "marker" raised, and a seedy individual, who appeared immediately connected with the useful art of cobbling, responded to our cries, and appeared apron-clad, and sole in hand, to personate proprietor and marker alike. He pointed out to us, with amiable candour, many other scars in the aged cloth, and demanded, with some apparent fear of being deemed rapacious, the sum of half-a-crown as a remuneration for the use and abuse of the table. This atonement cheerfully made, we returned to the hotel to dinner; that meal, though it was not late, and we had breakfasted on beef-steaks, we were not inclined to make light of. A long drive on a fine day, with a steady consumption of cigars to aid and abet digestion, gave our appetites a keen edge, and Travers played his knife and fork with more assiduity and perhaps more success, than he had performed on his cornet.

We consumed a moderate quantity of wine. A bottle of the landlord's hock, one of his pale sherry, and another of his best and rather fruity port, were imbibed in very equal proportions and with some rapidity.

Travers, after the first course, of which he had partaken voraciously, was rallied on his supposed loss of appetite, and his general depression at the accident on the billiard-table. He was counselled to avail himself of a refreshing process sometimes adopted at the feasts of Alderman Gobble, to stand up a little, and let the waiter bring him a cool chair. He bore our raillery with the equanimity of a philosopher, and sat in silence eating hard.

"Postquam prima quies epulis, mensæque remotæ," Travers walked into the balcony, and with his cornet blew a blast so loud and dread,—

"Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe,"

and then commenced various waltzes and polkas which he had already played more than once during the morning's drive. This noise, for to call it music might be incorrect, and the spectacle of ourselves lounging in chairs, and indulging in an American altitude of legs as we smoked our cigars, was sufficient to attract a large proportion of the children of the town in the street.

"Let's have a scramble," suggested Herningham, and the proposition was immediately agreed to. Five shillings was forthwith entrusted to the waiter, who was charged to bring us from some of the neighbouring shops, the whole sum in half-pence. The copper returned, we did not stoop to the gentish and barbarous practice of heating it, and having no particular taste for torture, and intent only on getting up a crowd or scramble, we proceeded to throw the half-pence in their cold and normal condition among the assembled juveniles. The crowd gradually increased, the scrambles were frequent and vehement, and our laughter quite proportionate to the tumbles and scuffles below. When the vast sum was well-nigh expended, Stapledon, who was a great orator at the University Debating Club, must needs make a speech to the multitude. "Shy us some more coppers," shouted a small boy, who had been perhaps the most successful in the struggles for wealth, and whose avarice was excited. "You shan't have another scramble" was the firm reply of the mob-orator, "unless you hear me." This restored silence, and Stapledon proceeded in a mock-heroic strain, to dwell on the advantages of a copper currency, and to praise the old English pastime of scrambles. He then indulged in a general eulogy of popular institutions and democracy, and concluded by seizing me by the arm, dragging me forward, and introducing me as Mr. Feargus O'Connor. Whether the adult spectators in the crowd saw through the joke, or the junior scramblers did not, I was welcomed with loud cheering, to which I responded by taking off my hat and bowing profoundly to my audience. "Shy us some coppers," again cried the avaricious small boy, but a hand was placed on his mouth, and silence again restored. I spoke to them on the subject of the income tax, with which I said they must all doubtless be well acquainted (cries of ere! ere!). I commented with severity on the injury done to each and all of them by direct taxation, and denounced it as dangerous to liberty, invidious, and inquisitorial (intense excitement among the ragged rascals, who knew nothing about the income-tax, and certainly had never paid it). I branched off into matters if not quite germane to the subject, at any rate connected with political economy in general. There seemed a slight impatience, and as I concluded a peroration, which had often brought down the house at the Debating Club, a chimney-sweep, who was evidently a wag, and was standing a little apart from the mass of scramblers, audibly articulated “Walker!" at which observation the crowd laughed immoderately. I felt that I was pro tem. beaten; but my taxed ingenuity suggested a retort, and as the laughter subsided, I leant over the balcony, and with my hand to my ear, that I might the better catch his reply, asked with much gravity and earnestness, pointing to him, "What observation had fallen from that gentleman in mourning?" A roar of laughter ensued, loud cheers were given, and the silenced chimney-sweep slunk off, and we embraced the triumphant moment for hurling the few remaining coppers among the rabble, and retiring from the balcony.

66

'Bravo, old fellow," exclaimed my three friends, "remember and put a

chimney-sweep into the crowd to interrupt you, the first time you speak on the hustings."

We now determined on starting. It was debated over a small bowl of punch, whether we should drive back to the great University, or proceed to Stoking, a large county town, where a lark was more practicable than here. I strongly advocated the latter plan; Henringham was sent to report on the condition of our horses, and as he was, by the aid of the punch, very fresh himself, he came back to us without even visiting the stable, and declared they were so, and that Fanny looked "clipping." My proposition was therefore carried nem. con. We paid our bill, got into our trap, and drove away, playing the cornet and shouting in answer to the cheers of the grateful scramblers, still in a state of uproar outside the inn. As we drove along I offered, much elated by the success of our mob-speeches at Beadenham, to bet ten pounds that I would preach at any dissenting chapel in Stoking, or speak at any meeting convened on any subject whatever, whenever I might be permitted to do so. This was thought rather impracticable, but a lark of some sort we were determined to have, and by the time we had reached Stoking we had matured it. A large Chartist meeting in the principal square of the town, to be held within half-an-hour after our arrival, was the scheme approved of by all.

We put up our dog-cart and horses, and on learning the place where the Borough members addressed their constituents we determined on making use of this locale. We now divided into two parties, and went the round of the public houses, where we drank a little beer and gave a great deal to everybody in the tap-room, and informed them that some gentlemen from Manchester, who was passing through Stoking, had determined to address the inhabitants in the principal square. This done we met and proceeded to the chosen spot. A few stragglers had already made their way to the agora. The difficulty now was how to secure an eminence from which to harangue the many-headed. Travers, who happened to be a nephew of one of the M.P.s for the place, showed us a house with a balcony from which his uncle always spoke at the elections; but added that, although not known in the tap-rooms when he had helped to advertise the meeting, he could not make himself conspicuous by appearing before the multitude, that he would mingle with the listeners where he could benefit us far more than by speaking, "for," added he, (and I think it is the only quotation I ever heard him make) “I am no orator as Brutus is," pointing to Stapledon. This arranged, our next difficulty was to settle who should attempt to procure the use of the balcony from the inmates of the house which it adorned. I agreed to take this weighty matter in hand, on condition that Henringham should speak first. Now it occurred to me that if we condescended to ask this boon, it might be denied us, and that there would be a greater chance of succeeding if we took possession of this proud eminence and apologized afterwards, if necessary. When I reflect that it was a quiet-looking house, the ground floor a shop, and the upper rooms let out as lodgings, I cannot but think the determination a somewhat bold one, but my reputation was at stake. I had been the chief promoter of this insane frolic, and I had undertaken this part of the business. I therefore walked with my two Chartist colleagues deliberately up to the door. A maid-servant was washing the passage: I was not, therefore, compelled to knock, but requested her with an air of authority to show us up