a letter, which came before the Commission in evidence, that Mr. Munster, a candidate from England, personally unknown to the constituency, should,' to gain a good character at the outset,' give 400/. or 500l. to establish Christian Brothers' schools in Cashel, the money to be given back to him by the trustees if not elected.' The letter went on to say, 'There is no doubt this would be a judicious investment'; and, though Mr. Munster gave the donation unconditionally, and rejected the proposal that the money should be returned in case of non-election, yet the Commission held that the donation was an investment,' and that the transaction was corrupt. On the Monday before the election, Mr. Munster took what he called a step in the direction of purity of election.' He retained as his agents, at the fee of five guineas each, such voters as-being capable of the duties of agents were notoriously venal in the exercise of the franchise, making it a condition that they should not vote on either side. Mr. Munster had, he said, given directions that no enquiry should be made as to the political leanings of these persons. But his agents, it seems, found in the voters who were believed to be hostile to Mr. Munster altogether superior aptitude for the duties of agents. Norwich was most famous for the setting on' system. It assumed the form of organized corruption at the General Election of 1874, the most blazing election of modern times.' An intelligent witness deposed before a Norwich Election Commission : 'The moment the trumpet is sounded for a General Election, there seems to spring from the ground, as it were, a host of employment-seekers.' This form of corruption, the bribing of voters by offering good wages for the discharge of nominal functions during the period of election, is now the subtlest form of bribery, except perhaps the bribery which takes the form of munificent donations to local charities. In 1857, voters resident in Hull were asked to breakfast on the morning of the following day, and each found thirty shillings under his cup. Bribes have often been administered in this way. Sometimes the treat itself forms a sufficient inducement. It was a common practice to provide free board and lodging for supporters. During a contested election in Meath, Sir Mark Somerville gave orders to the proprietors of the hotel in Trim to provide board and lodging for all who should vote for him. He received the following bill, which he framed, and which, we believe, still hangs in Somerville House, Co. Meath. A copy of the bill was among the papers of the late Very Rev. Archdeacon O'Connell, Vicar-General of the Diocese of Meath :— spoil of the landlords; the Catholic priesthood are caught by the bait of increased influence in public appointments, and of the transfer to them of Protestant or secularist educational endowments. Lastly, the artisans are bribed by the prospect of protective legislation. A prohibitive duty on British manufactures seems to them to mean high wages, abundant (and therefore scamped) work, and unrestricted observance of the festival of Saint Monday.' These are the bribes which the 'Nationalist' candidate distributes broadcast; and with an electorate, multitudinous and absolutely ignorant, yet possessed by all the chimeras dire' that a vicious political economy can create, these bribes are far more effective than money payments. These indeed the Ballot Act alone wellnigh suppressed in Ireland. There is no use in making a payment to a man for a prospective service, when his most cherished principle is that contracts of all kinds are entered into only to be broken. We have spoken above of the corruption by which the Union was carried. Are the baits now held out to whole classes by those who seek the repeal of the Union less really bribes than were those payments, pensions, places, and peerages, by which the Union was brought about? To the Irish Nationalists are offered some twenty thousand Civil Service appointments to be divided amongst themselves, and some 2,000,000l. per annum; to the Irish landlords, 50,000,000l. sterling; to the Irish tenants the freehold of the land they occupy, on payment of a terminable annuity; to the members of the Government, office; while every member of Parliament who wished to vote against Mr. Gladstone's Bill was intimidated by the prospect of a Dissolution; in other words, by the threat of a large pecuniary fine if the Bill should not be allowed to pass. In England it is seriously to be apprehended, that the doctrine of ransom, so loudly proclaimed by some politicians, may have taken the place of the coarser, but less dangerous, cupidity, which has for its object the receipt of a money bribe. If we are to be saved from bribery only by the fostering of political and economic delusion, and the fanning of religious animosity, we take leave to doubt whether we shall have much reason to congratulate ourselves on our immaculate electors; whether we are not destined to find that we have only got for all our pains a house swept and garnished,' like the demoniac in the Gospel, who went and took to himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they entered in, and dwelt there: and the last state of that man was worse than the first. countering with dirtier bargees. The humours of old election days are gone, or have but a pale reflection in the heckling' of candidates at nomination-a source of pleasantry which comes quod minime reris-from the Scotch constituencies. For the candidate it would seem that a golden era had dawned. But for him, too, modern legislation has brought its bane with its antidote. Modern legislation makes bribery very difficult, and consequently makes contests cheap. But who can be sure that he has escaped an election petition? Who can tell how oft he offendeth? What Proteus can keep himself unmeshed by the toils of the minute and countless provisions of the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act of 1883? Thus we have seen that corruption in its worst form, whereby a person invested by the public with power is induced by money to use it wrongly, has left but little mark on any period of English history, and has long since ceased to exist in England at all; that bribery, by the bestowal of place and emolument on party adherents, is not carried further than the system itself of government by party demands; and that against the form of corruption most prevalent in Great Britain-the direct administration of money to the electors—we have fenced ourselves round with a triple wall of statutes and penalties. What, then, will be in the future the motive which will actuate the enormously increased electorate in the giving of their votes? The kind of corruption which under these new conditions is likely to flourish in England is, to some extent, indicated by the course of recent politics. It is thus forecast by Sir H. Maine: * Perhaps we are not at liberty to forget that there are two kinds of bribery. It can be carried on by promising or giving to expectant partisans places paid out of the taxes, or it may consist in the directer process of legislating away the property of one class and transferring it to another. It is this last which is likely to be the corruption of these latter days." History teaches that corruption has almost invariably been found in connection with free institutions. Where it has been absent, it has been superseded by some other strong, and for the most part temporary, motive, which has often been far more pernicious in its effects. At present in Ireland it may be fairly said that there is no such thing as electoral corruption, if we speak of the corruption of the individual voter. The corruption appeals to classes. The farmer is bribed with the anticipation of a prairie rent; the labourer, with the hope of a share in the *Popular Government,' p. 105 (2nd edition). spoil of the landlords; the Catholic priesthood are caught by the bait of increased influence in public appointments, and of the transfer to them of Protestant or secularist educational endowments. Lastly, the artisans are bribed by the prospect of protective legislation. A prohibitive duty on British manufactures seems to them to mean high wages, abundant (and therefore scamped) work, and unrestricted observance of the festival of Saint Monday.' These are the bribes which the 'Nationalist' candidate distributes broadcast; and with an electorate, multitudinous and absolutely ignorant, yet possessed by all the chimeras dire' that a vicious political economy can create, these bribes are far more effective than money payments. These indeed the Ballot Act alone wellnigh suppressed in Ireland. There is no use in making a payment to a man for a prospective service, when his most cherished principle is that contracts of all kinds are entered into only to be broken. We have spoken above of the corruption by which the Union was carried. Are the baits now held out to whole classes by those who seek the repeal of the Union less really bribes than were those payments, pensions, places, and peerages, by which the Union was brought about? To the Irish Nationalists are offered some twenty thousand Civil Service appointments to be divided amongst themselves, and some 2,000,000l. per annum; to the Irish landlords, 50,000,000l. sterling; to the Irish tenants the freehold of the land they occupy, on payment of a terminable annuity; to the members of the Government, office; while every member of Parliament who wished to vote against Mr. Gladstone's Bill was intimidated by the prospect of a Dissolution; in other words, by the threat of a large pecuniary fine if the Bill should not be allowed to pass. In England it is seriously to be apprehended, that the doctrine of ransom, so loudly proclaimed by some politicians, may have taken the place of the coarser, but less dangerous, cupidity, which has for its object the receipt of a money bribe. If we are to be saved from bribery only by the fostering of political and economic delusion, and the fanning of religious animosity, we take leave to doubt whether we shall have much reason to congratulate ourselves on our immaculate electors; whether we are not destined to find that we have only got for all our pains a house swept and garnished,' like the demoniac in the Gospel, who went and took to himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they entered in, and dwelt there: and the last state of that man was worse than the first. Vol. 163.-No. 325. D ART. II.-1. Robinson Crusoe. By Daniel Defoe, 1719. 4. Roderick Random. By Tobias Smollett, 1748. 8. Castle of Otranto. By Horace Walpole, 1764. IN a field so wide as that of the English Novel, sport is spoiled both when too much and too little game is on foot. On every side the scent lies so fresh, that the morning might be wasted in choosing which to pursue. After sketching in bare outline the growth of the English Novel out of its ancient, medieval, and Renaissance elements, we shall restrict ourselves to its development in the eighteenth century, before the Wizard of the North laid his spell on a listening world. 'Après lui le déluge.' The leaves that strew the brooks of Vallombrosa fell not more thickly than modern novels fall from the press. To those who write for fame, or bread, or both, must now be added those who write from boredom. The world is the novelist's oyster; he has but to open it with his pen. Nothing is new under the sun, not even the Novel. The claim to its modern invention might be retorted by the assertion that Joe Miller himself was born at Athens, and educated at Bagdad by a Scandinavian Skald. One enquirer traces the origin of the novel to classic writers, another to the Norseman, a third to the Arabs; a fourth attempts to reconcile the conflicting theories. Prose fiction, if followed to its source through modern novels, ideal romances, medieval tales of chivalry, and the ballads of ruder ages, will prove to be history told in metre. It is in truth an accommodation of the epic poem to the average capacity of numerous readers. Medieval and Ideal Romances passed from fact to fiction; modern novels approximated from fiction to fact. In the eighteenth century novels were narrowed by the reaction against ideal romance into the realism of Defoe, then expanded into the real life of Fielding, and finally luxuriated in the imagination of Mrs. Radcliffe. But they still retained the characteristic by which they are |