AN ELECTION AT CHRISTMAS. Fortunately, however, on this occasion the
warmest advo- cates for making Christmas-tide a period of peace and good- will may be at ease. If we must have an election and a con- tested election in Buckinghamshire, it is one in which the combatants contend in the spirit of Squire Bracebridge and Sir Roger de Coverley. If New Year's Day is to be given up to sitting in polling-booths and taking votes, the war will be carried on in all courtesy and the bribery oath be adminis- tered as little as possible. Of this, the proceedings at the nomination on Wednesday last may be taken as an earnest, where every one seems to have felt that it was necessary to conduct himself in a ser sonable fashion. The Shire Hall at Aylesbury was well filled, but so little of violence was apprehended that a small gallery was filled with ladies. The High Sheriff, of course, presided, descended from ances- tors, as the Liberal candidate did not fail to remind him, who were members of the old County Baronets' Club, formed to oppose "the autocracy of the noble house of Grenville." The Tory candidate, Mr. Robert Harvey, of Langley Park, whose chief claim on the electors seems to be that he is the brother- in-law of the Duke of Buckingham, was the happy provoca- tive of these traditions of a time when the spirit of John Hampden was still alive in the county. His speech, perhaps, did not tell us much, but it expressed the good old Tory opinions in a good old Tory way. It was in Mr. Braoebridge's best manner, and perhaps suited the audience better than a more studied harangue. He was of course prepared " to rally round our glorious Constitution." This elicited great cheer- ing. The ballot he considered " a moan and shabby, a cowardly and sneaking contrivance,"—and these were certainly much the hardest words that were used that day—and he drew a rather funny picture of the two electors, one of whom would sneak to the ballot box with his voting paper "hidden under his coat-tails," while the other of a "franker bearing" would say, " I will show you my voting paper; it has Mr. Harvey's name on it," Church-rates and a persistent neutrality were as dear to him as the Game Laws, in the administration of which he saw no hardship ; and he would preserve " the union of Church and State, not in order to make the Church political, but the State religious." That last sentence is certainly in the best Tory manner ; it sounds so very venerable and means so very little, and as all men seem to be agreed that Mr. Harvey is a kind-hearted, honour- able, neighbourly, country gentleman, we do not doubt that he will make a very good county member; and if he does not add much to the genius of the House of Commons will, at least, not detract from its good sense.
But the hero of the day was, to our mind, the Liberal candidate, Dr. Lee, of Hartwell Park. He is described as a mild and gentlemanly-looking country squire, of very vener- able mien, and his antagonist, Mr. Harvey, courteously ad- mitted him to be " of acknowledged ability, of wide astrono- mical and meteorological celebrity, of broad acres, and of good county family." If to this we add that from his cour- tesy and benevolence he is equally beloved by his friends and tenantry, it would seem that the Liberals were provided with a model candidate, and so, indeed, they were, for a Christmas election. When the venerable old man, with his grey hairs, and voice " feeble, but distinct," came to the front of the hustings, it seemed as if we had got back to an older election in Worcestershire, which is as real to this generation as if it had actually happened. For of the candidate for Bucking- hamshire we may truly say that " all who know that shire are very well acquainted with his parts and merits. He is a gentleman that is very singular in his behaviour, but his singularities proceed from his good sense, and are contradictions to the manners of the world, only as he thinks the world is in the wrong. However, this humour creates him no enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy; and his being unconfined to modes and forms, makes him but the readier and more capable to oblige and please all who know him." In this temper of universal benevolence Dr. Lee commenced his speech by bowing profoundly to the ladies' gallery, for he is an advo- cate of woman's rights, and would have the gentler sex voters as well as taxpayers, and esteems them as fit to sit in St. Stephen's as on a throne. Frady admitting his antagonist to be a " good " candidate, Dr. Lee thought that the Tories ought not to monopolize--Buckinghamshire, and wished that therdwere more candidates, so as to give the constituency a wider choice, and make the election a sort of sweepstakes. After we do not need to be assured that the worthy squire is not actuated by personal ambition, has not a single paid agent, nor even " the Man in the Moon " retained as a canvasser. On ordinary subjects, such as the cession of the Ionian Isles, the reduction of expenditure and excessive game-preserving,
he spoke with moderation and good sense, and if we trace something of the old whimsical simplicity in the desire to make " S. G. 0." Bishop of St. Alban s, we are more pleased to find that at the present moment he has kept himself free from religious intolerance, is pleased with the elevation of a Papist to the bench, and recognizes " the fearless outspoken- ness " of Dr. Colenso, though he does not share his con- clusions. Dr. Lee is, we believe, a teetotaller, and if he confines his partizanship to an attempt to induce all drunkards voluntarily to take the pledge, there can be no harm in that ; and even his pet anti-tobacco theory is one which he shares not only with King James I., but with the late Sir Benjamin Brodie. This, of course, was the theme for all the witticisms, not only of the Tory speakers but of the crowd before the hustings. When Dr. Lee boldly avowed that he gave up Mr. Gladstone because instead of abolishing the tea-duty he had reduced that on tobacco, some wit in the mob shouted out, " What would you give the poor man in lieu of his beer and 'baccy ?" Promptly the Doctor answered, smiling blandly as he spoke, " Why what I now offer you, a tract," and immediately began tendering his anti-tobacco tracts to the High Sheriff and the gentlemen around. And before the laughter, which this sally called out, had died away, the venerable speaker com- pleted his victory by adding, with ineffable innocence and sincerity, " And if any one present is ready to subscribe to the anti-tobacco pledge, I shall be most happy to take down his name." That day, at least, the Doctor was triumphant to the end, for the show of hands was decided to be in his favour.
Writing before the result of the election is known, we are not at all sanguine that this victory will be repeated at the hustings. Yet it would be well that Buckinghamshire should not be quite given over to Toryism, and if the electors would not quite so tamely submit to the dictation of the great landowners. Nor in days when so many men are earnest and proportionately hard, would the House of Commons be any loser if a Sir Roger de Coverley were once again to enter its walls. Dr. Lee's crotchets could do no more harm than Colonel Sibthorp's violence, or Mr. Drummond's apostleship ; and the sight of that generous courtesy, that kindly benevo- lence, that naive simplicity, coupled with learning, station, and integrity, is something by which all may profit. The Buckinghamshire election may, perhaps, in a party sense, be a hollow thing, but it has at least given the world a perfect specimen of how an election should be conducted at Christmas.
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