him. He took, from the first, that station in the House which it
requires tact to establish, and great knowledge of the world to free from
the charge of impracticability and crotchet, but which, once established,
is peculiarly imposing from the rarity of its independence; that is to
say, the station of the moderate man who belongs sufficiently to a party
to obtain its support, but is yet sufficiently disengaged from a party to
make his vote and word, on certain questions, matter of anxiety and
speculation.

Professing Toryism (the word Conservative, which would have suited him
better, was not then known), he separated himself from the country party,
and always avowed great respect for the opinions of the large towns. The
epithet given to the views of Audley Egerton was "enlightened." Never
too much in advance of the passion of the day, yet never behind its
movement, he had that shrewd calculation of odds which a consummate
mastery of the world sometimes bestows upon politicians,--perceived the
chances for and against a certain question being carried within a certain
time, and nicked the question between wind and water. He was so good a
barometer of that changeful weather called Public Opinion, that he might
have had a hand in the "Times" newspaper. He soon quarrelled, and
purposely, with his Lansmere constituents; nor had he ever revisited that
borough,--perhaps because it was associated with unpleasant reminiscences
in the shape of the squire's epistolary trimmer, and in that of his own
effigies which his agricultural constituents had burned in the corn-
market. But the speeches that produced such indignation at Lansmere had
delighted one of the greatest of our commercial towns, which at the next
general election honoured him with its representation. In those days,
before the Reform Bill, great commercial towns chose men of high mark for
their member; and a proud station it was for him who was delegated to
speak the voice of the princely merchants of England.