conform to all its precepts so obediently that they never anger it. And, much more, if we know enough of the "queer fellow" to be aware that a true, warm, glowing, fraternal heart for his fellow-creatures beats in his bosom, notwithstanding a few outward traits of somewhat striking difference from the crowd, why, then, it becomes our bounden duty,—I will not say, never to smile at his peculiarities, for that sort of puritanism will not make us better men,—but to dwell upon his virtues and excellencies,—to extol them, yea, to enthrone them, whenever he is seen, or heard, or talked of, by those with whom we company.

Perhaps political party is more universal than any other bad influence without, in misguiding Englishmen into ill-natured, or contemptuous, or depreciatory judgments of their neighbours and fellow-townsmen. The last dozen or fifteen years, especially, have engendered a superabundance of this foul canker;—so many new rivalries have sprung up with the great changes in political and municipal institutions; and men, from the mightiest to the meanest, have been caught up, and whirled along, in many instances so involuntarily, into the rush and torrent of change. And yet, how the lapse of these dozen or fifteen years hath altered the judgment of many of us, with regard to some men and their party-cries. What a wide-spread "liberal" laudation, for instance, there was about the famous definition of a Tory, in the Times,—and yet how soon it became its own "duck-legged drummer-boy," and all that! Nay, how soon did some of the very chiefs of the potential reforming party,—from idols of the multitude,—by their refusal to complete what they had begun, and, indeed, in some instances, by their open manifestation of a will to undo what they had done,—become its scoff and scorn, nay, even its detestation!

And then the old "Guilds," or "Corporations," to which the new "Town-Councils" have succeeded,—what a general tendency to exaggeration there was in the mode of judging of them, and in the tone of talking and writing about them, especially in the public prints. How witty were the newspaper people in their conceits of conserving, or pickling, or embalming an alderman, and having him placed in the British Museum, as a curiosity for antiquaries to form profound speculations upon, some ten or twelve centuries into futurity! Ay, and how eloquently abusive was the prevailing Whig strain about "nests of corruption," and "rotten lumber," and "fine pickings," and "impositions, and frauds, and dark rogueries of the self-elect!" And how the scale has turned, since, in the greater share of boroughs, where the poor and labouring classes threw up their hats for joy at "municipal reform,"—and now mutter discontent at the pride of upstarts become insolent oppressors,—or openly curse, as in the poverty-stricken and hunger-bitten manufacturing districts, at the relentless and grinding tyrannies of the recreant middle-classes whom municipal honours have drawn off from their hot-blooded radicalism, and converted into cold, unfeeling, merciless wielders of magisterial or other local power.

There was, it cannot be denied, in the droll trappings and antiquated mummeries of the old guilds,—in their ermined scarlet cloaks, and funny cocked hats, and in their maces and staves,—and above all, in the starch, and march, and swelling, and strut, and pomposity, with which these were worn or borne,—much that was calculated to tickle the spectator into mirth; but, really, when one thinks of it, are the horse-hair wig of a bishop, a judge, or a barrister, the robe and coronet of a peer, or the crown and sceptre of a king or queen, less like playthings for upgrown children than were the "regalia" and antique habits of the old corporation-men? Was Cromwell so far beside the mark when he called the Speaker's mace a "fool's bauble?"—and might not the expression be applied with as much fitness to many other "ensigns of office," as they are called?

And again: though it is true that a grand uncurtaining of robbery,—for that is the plain English of it,—was made in some, at least, of the old boroughs, by the inquest of that parliamentary commission which preceded the sweeping away of the old corporations,—yet are we not, now, become conscious, that amid the party heat and animosity of the period, much private excellence was over-shaded or forgotten in the rage of public censure, nay, that much virtue was denied, even where it was known to exist, lest the recognition of it should mar the scheme for overthrowing the party to which that virtue was attached?

This is a long exordium for a fugitive sketch, and it is time to say it has sprung from reflections created in the mind of an imprisoned "conspirator" and "mover of sedition," by the flitting across his cell, in his imagination, of sundry bygone shapes with whom he was, more or less, familiar at one period of his changeful life. It is the "Old Corporation" of the ancient and time-honoured city of Lincoln, of which the writer speaks;—and though wit might discover among its members many a foible that would form a picture to "make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' the sere," yet generosity, and justice, no less, must confess, that after the most searching inquiry and exposure, they were neither individually nor collectively stained with the acts of peculation and embezzlement, nor application of public funds to political party purposes, which were so heavily, and, no doubt, truly charged on some of the old guilds in other parts of the country.

Yet they were, as a body, supporters of the ancien régime, as was natural: they had been inured, the greater part of them, through nearly the whole of their lives, to look upon the established state of things as the best and fittest;—and, no doubt, the majority of them conscientiously believed it to be so,—failing, through the confined and stinted nature of their social training, to reflect that what was productive to themselves, the few, of pleasure or comfort, might confer no benefits on the many,—but rather be a source, to these, of deep and increasing suffering. Passing by many a picture that starts to memory of "mayoralty," and its ludicrous airs of greatness, and many a reminiscence of grave joke and lighter whimsicality,—of burlesque importance, and mirth-moving earnestness about trifles,—recollection dwells with consolated interest on more durable limnings of simple, uncorrupted manners, and warm hearts, and really expansive natures, that belonged to some of that "Old Corporation."

There is one comes before me, vividly, at this moment,—while that sweet robin-red-breast hops into my day-room, and bends his neck to look at me so knowingly and friendlily in my loneliness, as he doth, almost daily;—and the loved bird's image consorts delightfully with him I was thinking of,—for, above all things, the fine, noble-hearted, yet meek and gentle old alderman, loved to be thought and esteemed an ornithologist! That was his pride, his loftiest aim, his highest ambition,—as far as reputation or a name was the subject of his thought. As for his charities, and enlarged acts of sympathy for his suffering fellow-creatures, his deeds of mercy and goodness, he strove to hide them, performing them often by stealth, and half denying the performance of them, when admiration of his beneficence kindled praise of it in his hearing. Ah! it is too true: he relieved wretchedness till his purse was scanty, and his circumstances were straitened;—and then,—and then,—in spite of his aldermanic dignity, in spite of his "respectable" family connections, and even the respectability of his own practice and profession, as a surgeon,—he was mentioned as the "odd,"—the "singular,"—the "eccentric" Mr.