A PERSONAL-PARLIAMENTARY,

"MESSRS SHUFFELL & SHIFT present their respectful compliments to Mr O'Dowd, and beg to learn if he be disposed-as some time since he informed them he was to offer himself for a seat in Parliament. S. & S. have now several borough and two county representations on their list, and are hopeful that neither the pecuniary considerations nor the political obligations will be found any obstacle to Mr O'Dowd's most natural ambition. An early reply is requested, as a large number of applicants is already in the field."

I received this despatch as I was looking over my fishing-tackle, thinking of hooking something very different from an Under-Secretaryship, or even the berth of Assistant-Commissioner to somebody's commission. I replied at once, intimating that I had a wide conscience and a narrow purse; that my breast

was charged with noble aspirations, but I was afraid I had overdrawn my banker. If, then, Messrs S. & S. could hit upon a pure-minded constituency desirous to distinguish themselves in a corrupt age by single-mindedness and devotion, and eager to send into the House a man as unshackled by pledges as he was unstained by bribery, to let me have their address, and they should have mine.

To this came these words, marked "Private❞—

"DEAR O'DOWD,-No bosh. Can you come down with fifteen hundred ready? Ballot, manhood suffrage, no Church, no entail, no anything after ten years. Yours ever, MALACHI SHUFFELL."

My reply was-"Money tight, convictions easy, hopes looking up;" and on this we arranged a meeting at Brussels.

Punctual to his appointment, Shuffell arrived an hour after myself. He had but a day to give me, but a day is a long space when two men understand each other, and thoroughly take in, each the intentions of the other. He had brought four specimen boroughs for my inspection. They were the only things going cheap at the moment, for, as he said,

There's a great run on the House now. They all want to get in."

Nothing could be more succinct or businesslike than his list. There was first the name of the place, in another column the number of the electors, in a third "available voters," in a fourth general hints for canvass; as thus-"Swampleigh, with 682. The Baptist section, and Hoddes the saddler, Maccles of the Fox and Goose, and Tom Groves of the PostOffice. Hints-Reduced taxation, overthrow of the Irish Church, subsidy to Congregational religionists, no Sunday traffic, no beerhouses, a general nothingness, and great economy."

'Not the thing for you, Mr O'D.," said he; "there is no expansiveness here-nothing for the man who 'glories in the name of Briton.' This is betterComberton, voters 1004; 460 available by various arguments. Of this borough there are annually from forty to fifty drafted into the public service. They like the Revenue, and many are gaugers. They are convivial, Radical, and religious, but above all bigotry in each, and are really devoted to providing for their families, and have always upheld the reputation of the town.

This is next: Inshakerrigan-Tenant-right, free passage to America, no spirit-duties, no Established Church, no county rates, the poor on the Consolidated Fund."

The last was a Welsh borough, Mnddllmwcrllm;

but as the candidate would be called on to pronounce the name, I gave it up at once.

"Is there nothing Conservative?" asked I, for I had several notes in my desk against growing Radicalism, the wisdom of our ancestors, and time-honoured institutions.

After a brief pause, he replied, "Yes, there is Ditchley-le-Moors; but it's costly-very costly: we always keep it for one of the speechless younger sons of a great house.

"You must canvass Ditchley," said he, "in an earl's carriage, and send your orders to the tradespeople by one of the noble lord's flunkeys. They have always had that respect paid them, and they like it. Do you happen to know a lord who could spare you his equipage for a week or ten days?"

I shook my head.

"Let us not think of Ditchley," continued he; "besides, you'd find it immensely hard to speak on that side. They all want England to be great, powerful, and Protestant, but with increased armaments and diminished expenditure. Bully Europe, and cut down the Income-tax!' is the cry. The Church, too, is to be upheld in all its strength, uniformity insisted on, and the right of private judgment maintained-a difficulty in its way; and in the distance a Reform Bill, opening the franchise

to every man with a pair of black trousers. Can you do this?"

'Scarcely."

"I thought not. There's no such easy tune on the political fiddle as the Radical jig, 'Down with all o' them.' 'Am I to tell the vast and intelligent assembly I see before me this evening-an assembly that represents the skill, the ability, the industry, ay, and the integrity of this great nation-that they are deemed too ignorant, too uneducated, too irresponsible, and too dangerous, to be intrusted with civil rights? Is it because by the daily exercise of those qualities which have made England the workshop of the world, that you are to be excluded from any share in the Government whose enactments no men are more vitally interested in than yourselves?'

"There's the key-note-go on now."

I arose, threw back my coat from my chest, and continued: "It is by labour that life is dignified, and which of us is not proud to be a labourer? If the indolent aristocrat who refuses to let us share in the rewards and prizes of the State were but to look back, he would find that his own rights to the very preeminence he asserts were founded on labour, and that the coronet on his brow was picked up in the mill or the factory, the counting-house or the law-court. He would learn that toil, which disciplines the heart,