For the mere adventurer, the man of ready wit and a fearless temperament, politics offer the best road to fortune. The abilities that would have secured a mere mediocrity of position in some profession will here win their way upwards. The desultory character of reading and acquirements, so fatal to men chained to a single pursuit, is eminently favourable to him who must talk about every thing, with, at least, the appearance of knowledge; while the very scantiness of his store suggests a recklessness that has great success in the world.
In England we have but one high road to eminence--Parliament. Literature, whose rewards are so great in France, with us only leads to intimacy with the "Trade" and a name in "the Row." It is true, Parliamentary reputation is of slow growth, and dependent on many circumstances totally remote from the capacity and attainments of him who seeks it. Are you the son of a great name in the Lords, the representative of an immense estate, or of great commercial wealth? are you high in the esteem of Corn men or Cotton men? are you a magnate of Railroads, or is your word law in the City? then your way is open and your path easy. Without these, or some one of them, you must be a segment of some leading man's party'.
My own little experience of Parliament--about the very briefest any man can recall--presents little pleasurable in the retrospect. Lord Collyton was one of my Christchurch acquaintances, and at his invitation I spent the autumn of 18-- at his father, the Duke of Wrexington's.
The house was full of company, and, like an English house in such circumstances, the most delightful _séjour_ imaginable. Every second day or so brought a relay of new arrivals, either from town or some other country-house full of the small-talk of the last visit,--all that strange but most amusing farrago which we designate by the humble title of "gossip," but which, so far as I can judge, is worth ten thousand times more than the boasted _causerie_ of France, and the perpetual effort at smartness so much aimed at by our polite neighbours.
The guests were numerous, and presented specimens of almost every peculiarity observable in Englishmen of a certain class. We had great lords and high court functionaries, deep in the mysteries of Buckingham House and Windsor; a sprinkling of distinguished foreigners; ministers, and secretaries of embassy; some parliamentary leaders, men great on the Treasury benches or strong on the Opposition. Beauties there were too, past, present, and some, coming; a fair share of the notorieties of fashion, and the last winner of the Derby, with--let me not forget him--a Quarterly Reviewer. This last gentleman came with the Marquis of Deepdene, and was, with the exception of a certain pertinacity of manner, a very agreeable person.