Mr. Rathbone, in his gallant canvas of South-West Lan- cashire,
has shown very different qualities indeed from Mr. Cross. It is difficult, we think, in the whole range of the electioneer- ing now going on, to surpass the following criticism of Mr.
Rathbone's on the present Government The great danger of the present Government seems to me that it is so exclusively
dominated by Lord Beaconsfield They remind me of a play of Gilbert's called Creatures of Impulse, the fun of which consists in the fact that a disguised witch makes all the characters act parts utterly repugnant to their natural inclinations. The miser squanders his guineas to every passer- by ; a timid rustic goes about involuntarily squaring his fists in the face of every strapping fellow he meets in the street, inter- nally praying that he will not hit him back ; while a coy young maiden, who shrinks from even the glance of an elderly gentle- man, tries to kiss every young fellow she meets in the streets. All these characters in the play are but types of the personnel of her Majesty's Government. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was brought np in Mr. Gladstone's school of sound finance, but yet, under the touch of the magic wand, he has been scattering the wealth of the country, and exclaiming, like Mr. Micawber whenever he renewed a bill, ' Thank God, that account is settled !' Mr. Cross, again, is well known in this county as an able chairman of quarter-sessions, and as such, his duty was, for many years, to maintain the peace of the country, and punish all those who broke it ; yet this man, with all the instincts inseparable from so good a training, was put up to square his fist in the face of the Emperor of Russia, and deliver a speech which seemed to have been studiously calcu- lated to sting the Russian Government into rashness, at a time when the peace of Europe depended upon the calmness of its judg- ment ; and lastly, in the coy young maiden we have the type of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whose horror of Home-rule is so great that he would not even dine with a Home-ruler, in the person of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, and who yet has been made by Lord Beaconsfield to offer to a Home-ruler, of very pronounced views, the lord-lieutenancy of a county, where he represents the very Queen whose dominions he is supposed to be bent upon dismembering." Lord Beaconsfield is not exactly a wizard, but he is a great political " electrobiologist," as people now call those who have the power to drive others into the foolishest attitudes by pure volition.
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