21 AUGUST 1830, Page 12

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE WORST EXAMPLE.

Essex—famous for calves and agues—has added to its distinc- tions the exhibition of the nicest pattern of election deformities that the United Kingdoms have produced. The eye turns with disgust from the accounts of this contest, with its nonsensical vapid gossipings, miscalled speeches, its pointless reflections, and brutal personalities. The objects are as indifferent as the means employed for them are offensive—what a question is it between Mr. WESTERN, Colonel TYRRELL, or Mr. WELLESLEY! And yet it is a neck and neck race. The fact is pregnant with reflec- tion, that Mr. WELLESLEY steadily ran his immediate opponent within a few more than 200 ! Such favour has he found in the sight of the worthy freeholders of Essex. Now this circumstance would place two judgments in curious oppoSition. The Court of Chancery ruled that Mr. WELLESLEY was unfit to have the guardianship of his children ; while a considerable proportion of the independent electors in the marshes of Essex account him sufficiently worthy to be intrusted with the care of their interests in Parliament. Lord ELDON held him unfit for the conduct of the nursery ; they whose talk is of bullocks esteem him qualified for a part in the Collective Wisdom. Lord ELDON said, " I can- not suffer him to educate ;" upwards of two thousand Essex voters have thought him fit to legislate. " He will corrupt his own boys," argued Lord ELDON; he shall assist in making laws for millions, said more..than a fourth of the constituency of Essex. He recom- mends " playing Hell and Tommy" to his children, observed Lord ELDON, with horror. We like playing Hell and Tommy with the pockets of county candidates, thought the good folks of Essex. It is not for us to hold the scales between the judgments of the woolsack and the pastures or plough-lands. Enough to say, we thought the decisionflocci in argument, cruel in effect, and dan- gerous in example. The Essex two thousand seem to have thought so too ; for they would scarcely have given their repre- sentation to a man unworthy of the natural rights, and unfit for the care of his own offspring. But allowing that this circumstance had no more weight than it was entitled to, and supposing that the good graziers and farmers exercised a sound judgment in re- fusing to be swayed by the authority of the late Lord Chancellor, --granting this, we yet seek in vain for the causes of favour which Mr. WELLESLEY has found in the county, and the toleration of his balderdash on the hustings. An extreme wrong (and in our opinion he suffered one) does not make a right. An excessive measure of punishment does not restore the person to impecca- bility. Mr. WELLESLEY has doubtless, however, had the ad- vantage of an agreeable disappointment. The first; consequence of seeing Old Nick, is, that when seen, he is remarked to be not so black as he is painted ; and provided he is civil, the next observation makes him as white as an angel. No one would sup- pose, from the quotations of the Essex poll, that any especial ob- jection applied to Mr. WELLESLEY; but, as Peachum remarks, " Gold is your true fuller's earth, it takes out all stains." It is, in melancholy truth, a degrading thing to see such a con- test as that which has distinguished Essex. Mr. WESTERN is a good sort of man, as the phrase goes, and as it implies ; a sort of man fit to pass through life respectably without undertaking any duties beyond the care of his private estate,—a good friend, a good neighbour, a good father, a good son, a good uncle, a good cou- sin, a good great-uncle, a good cousin-german, a good great-great uncle,—and a good cousin once or even twice removed, and only an insugicient member of Parliament. How many relations of goodness Colonel TYRELL may fulfil we do not happen to know ; but we have evidence that he is not a good disputant ; and it seems plain enough that neither nature nor education has prepared him to say yes or no on questions of any considerable moment or intricacy. Mr. WELLESLEY'S part has not been deficient in smartness, but of what a quality, and enlivening what a train of remark! He has climbed up the genealogical tree, and pelted the people with sixty rounds of his ancestors. He has identified himself with all the WELLESLEYS except himself. We forgot another exception—after he had amused his hearers for some time with the dry fruit of the family pedigree, a wag in the mob called out, " Why don't you tell us something about your mother, by way of a change." This sort of stuff has been tedious enough, but laud- able compared with the childish or savage personalities. All the days have produced discussions of similar quality ; and in noticing the brawl of the tenth day, we only take that immediately before us. Here is something " pretty and spicey "— He could not agree that the Colonel was a man of talent : for his own part he could see none of it : on the contrary, he had shown an ienorance of history and other things which he would not say would have disgraced leis son that stood by his side, but which would have disgraced his child of eight years old. (Great uproar, and a cry of "Is not that personal ?") He said that the gallant Colonel had shown such gross ignorance as would be a dis,erace to any body; and let who would deny it. (Uproar.) Colonel Tyrell said that he denied it; and he did think that what Mr. Wellesley said was perSonal to him. Mr. Wellesley—Very well; then the gallant Colonel knew where to find him. He should however, repeat, that he had shown the greatest igno. ranee in all historical matters. He meant nothing offensive to the gallant Colonelpersonally ; but as he had put himself forward as apublic man in opposition, he contended that he had a right to expose. his.blunders, and to pull him to pieces if he could; and so he would. Now he would point out instances. The gallant Colonel had said to them that he had a legiti - mate right, which he subsequently changed to a legitimate pretension, to epresent them : now he meant to say, that such an assertion was contrary to the spirit of the law and the constitution, and he defied any lawyer to get up and contradict him. The gallant Colonel then told them, that be

derived that pretension from an ancestor of his having sat in Parliament

in the reign of Charles II. ; but this he afterward changed to his being the Sheriff of the county at that period ; but that office, during the reigns of Charles and James, was always named for the purpose of forwarding the views of the Crown ; and therefore no man in his senses would think of deriving either right or pretensions from that source.

Upon such slight grounds was a gross insult founded, and fol- lowed up by a bullying allusion to the arbitrament of pistials. A says to B, " You are disgracefully ignorant ; and if you think it personal to be publicly called disgracefully ignorant, I am quite ready to shoot you." In what a state is the society which suffers these outrages ! Colonel TYRELL'S rejoinder has a very naive, but not equally decisive defence to the charge of ignorance ; and con- cludes with a folly in strict keeping with the provocation. Colonel Tyrell said, that with regard to his ignorance of history, the mistake between his ancestor being Member and Sheriff in Charles's time was a mere lapsus—he had announced it as such at the time—and told the honourable candidate that he was welcome to make what use of the lapsus he pleased. But if he were really so ignorant as the honourable candidate would make out, what a gross state the country must be in also to have placed him in such a situation on the poll. Many of the observations which the honourable gentleman had addressed, had certainly, in his opinion, savoured of personality ; but as be (Mr. Wellesley) had stated that he did not wish to insult him personally, he was the more willing to bear with it: if anything else was intended. however, he begged to inform the honourable candidate he also was to be found at Boreham House.

Boreham House indeed ! They are all to be found at Borehani House. They have bored us out of all patience ; and now they would threaten to improve the matter, by calling in pistol bores after they have exhausted their own natural lead. We hate and despise these public bravadoes, and will never fail to notice them, that the common sentiment may mark the braggart outrage with the befitting displeasure. Colonel TYRELL seems to have been provoked, but he should have told his opponent to look for him in. the (ovum House in Westminster, where ample opportunities will occur for determining the question of ignorance, and by an assembly which well knows what ignorance is—which is conspi- cuously at home in the thing, and knows the taste of it as well as Mrs. Hardcastle knew the taste of the family. horse-pond. It should he an understood maxim of society, that a man who publicly passes an affront to another, has the disposition to insult, and not the disposition to abide the consequences, which the wit- nesses are sure to prevent. A retorted defiance under such it is next in unworthiness to the provocation, for t is " sound and fury signifying nothing."