The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-22 00:00:00

achieve for him. The doctrine of out ward equality he
eschews as a barrier to all ambition, and to all improvement.
The idea is as mean as the thing is impracticable. But
within,—is it in his soul or in. his heart ?—within his breast
there is a manhood that will own no inferiority to the man-
hood of another. He retires to a corner that an earl with
his suit may pass proudly through the doorway, and he
grudges the earl nothing of his pride. It is the earl's right.
But ho also has his right ; and neither queen, nor earl, nor
people shall invade it, That is the creed of a radical.

Connected also with the electioneering part of
the work is the subjoined most humourous picture,
from-the-life, of the—

HORRORS OF A PUBLIC DINNER AT AN INN.
A horrid mess concocted of old gravy, catsup, and bad
wine was distributed under the name of soup. Then there
came upon the table half a huge hake,—the very worst fish
that swims, a fish with which Devonshire is peculiarly in-
vested. Some hard dark brown mysterious balls were
handed round, which on being opened with a knife were
found to contain sausage-meat, very greasy and by no
means cooked through. Even the dura ilia of the liberal
electors of Baslehurst declined to make acquaintance with
these dainties. After that came the dinner, consisting of a
piece of roast beef very raw, and a leg of parboiled mutton,
absolutely blue in its state of rawness. When the gory
mess was seen which displayed itself on the first incision
made into these lumps of meat, the vice-president and one
or two of his friends spoke out aloud. That hard and
greasy sausage meat might have been all right for any-
thing they knew to the contrary, and the soup they had
swallowed without complaint. But they did know what
should be the state of a joint of meat when brought to the
table, and therefore they spoke out in their anger.
Tappit himself said nothing that was intended to be
carried beyond the waiter, seeing that beer from
his own brewery was consumed in the tap of the Dragon;
but the vice-president was a hardware dealer with
whom the Dragon had but small connection of trade, and he
sent terrible messages down to the landlady, threatening
her with the Blue Boar, the Mitre, and even with that
nasty little pot-house the Chequers. " What is it they ex-
pects for their three-and-sixpence ?" said the landlady, in
her wrath; for it must be understood that Sharpit knew
well that he was dealing with one who understood the value
of money, and that he did not feel quite sure of passing the
dinner in Mr. Hart's bill. Then came a pie with crust an
inch thick, which nobody could eat, and a cabinet pudding,
so adieu, cull of lumps of suet. I venture to assert that each
liberal elector there wow(' bo.dinner at home,
and would have been served with greater comfort ; but a
public dinner at an inn is the recognised relaxation of a
middle-class Englishman in the provinces. Did he not
attend such banquets his neighbours would conceive him to
be constrained by domestic tyranny. Others go to them,
and therefore he goes also. He is bored frightfully by every
speech to which he listens. He is driven to the lowest
depths of dismay by every speech which he is called upon
to make. He is thoroughly disgusted when he is called on
to make no speech. He has no point of sympathy with the
neighbours between whom he sits. The wine is bad. The
hot water is brought to him cold. His seat is hard and
crowded. No attena?t is made at the pleasures of conversa-
tion. Ho is continually called upon to stand up that he
may pretend to drink a toast in honour of some person or
institution for which he cares nothing; for the hero of the
eveuing, as to whom he is probably indifferent ; for the
church, which, perhaps, he never enters; the army,
which he regards as a hotbed of arist)cratic in-
solence; or for the Queen whom he reveres and
loves by reason of his nature as an Englishman, but against
whose fulsome praises as repeated to him ad nauseam in the
h s speech his very soul unconsciously revolts. It
icsaalir aahn'ore, trouble, ennui, nastiness, and discomfort. But
yet he goes again and again,—because it is the relaxation
natural to an Englishman.

There is something gravely farcical in Mr. Anthony
Trollope's description of that exceedingly low
h parson—low eneugh to reach the level of
isusrecnt.....sleek, wori
dly-prudent, short, unctuous
Mr. Prong. Of a less obtrusive kind, Mr. Prong is
gems Chadband. The almost, so to speak,
church
of the
ecclesiastical love scenes between Mr. Prong and
Mrs. Prime during the anxious period for
both of
their temporary betrothal (for their
wooing
never ccnies to anything, but is
before long "off" altogether), these highly religious
and "proper love scenes between Mr. Prong and
and Mrs. Prime, afford the funniest, oddest contrast
well conceivable, to the charming love scenes already
referred to, as bringing
together, sometimes very
closely together, Luke and Rachel in the ball-
room, in
the farm parlour, or near the churchyard
stile. Mr. Prong and Mrs. Prime being even at their
happiest moments about as " snug" in their wooing,
as Lord Dundreary and his enamorata, when seated
at a &stance from each other of several arm's
lengths in the memorable dairy scene on
the greensward, . The masterful character of
the young hero of the tale is admirably well
pourtrayed. His gay, impulsive self-confidence
hovering at times on the very verge of conceit, never
once becomes distasteful. His contention with old
Tappitt, driving the latter at moments though it does
into a state of almost frantic irritation, never once
leads him on to the ruilLng of his own temper.
The only th:ng the reader is at all disposed to
quarrel with him about is the hardness, so to say,
of his stubborn silence to poor Rachel during the 1
for her, most painful interval of
tedious, and,
their estrangement. As such a charming love tale
should, all ends happily with Rachel Ray and
her surroundings. We close the book thankful to
the hand that has written it for the sweet homely
pictures of every day life, here so wiry graphically
and delightfully delineated.