Minister of England, as representative of the Liberal party in
politics. There had come to be a split among those who should have
been his followers on the terribly vexed question of the Ballot. Then
Mr. Daubeny for twelve months had sat upon the throne distributing
the good things of the Crown amidst Conservative birdlings, with
beaks wide open and craving maws, who certainly for some years
previous had not received their share of State honours or State
emoluments. And Mr. Daubeny was still so sitting, to the infinite
dismay of the Liberals, every man of whom felt that his party
was entitled by numerical strength to keep the management of the
Government within its own hands.

Let a man be of what side he may in politics,--unless he be much
more of a partisan than a patriot,--he will think it well that there
should be some equity of division in the bestowal of crumbs of
comfort. Can even any old Whig wish that every Lord Lieutenant of a
county should be an old Whig? Can it be good for the administration
of the law that none but Liberal lawyers should become
Attorney-Generals, and from thence Chief Justices or Lords of Appeal?
Should no Conservative Peer ever represent the majesty of England
in India, in Canada, or at St. Petersburgh? So arguing, moderate
Liberals had been glad to give Mr. Daubeny and his merry men a
chance. Mr. Daubeny and his merry men had not neglected the chance
given them. Fortune favoured them, and they made their hay while the
sun shone with an energy that had never been surpassed, improving
upon Fortune, till their natural enemies waxed impatient. There had
been as yet but one year of it, and the natural enemies, who had at
first expressed themselves as glad that the turn had come, might
have endured the period of spoliation with more equanimity. For to
them, the Liberals, this cutting up of the Whitehall cake by the