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“‘Bis dat qui dat
cito.’
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“I hate the pedantry of expressing that in another language which we have sufficient terms for in our own. So in plain English I very much wish you to give your vote to-morrow at Clerkenwell, instead of Saturday. It would clear up the brows of my favourite candidate, and stagger the hands of the opposite party. It commences at nine. How easy, as you come from Kensington (à propos, how is your excellent family?) to turn down Bloomsbury, through Leather Lane (avoiding Hay Stall St. for the disagreeableness of the name). Why, it brings you in four minutes and a half to the spot renowned on northern milestones, ‘where Hicks’ Hall formerly stood.’ There will be good cheer ready for every independent freeholder; where you see a green flag hang out go boldly in, call for ham, or beef, or what you please, and a mug of Meux’s Best. How much more gentlemen like to come in the front of the battle, openly avowing one’s sentiments, then to lag in on the last day, when the adversary is dejected, spiritless, laid low. Have the first cut at them. By Saturday you’ll cut into the mutton. I’d go cheerfully myself, but I am no freeholder (Fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium), but I sold it for £50. If they’d accept a copy-holder, we clerks are naturally copy-holders.
“By the way, get Mrs Hume, or that agreeable Amelia or Caroline, to stick a bit of green in your hat. Nothing daunts the adversary more than to wear the colours of your party. Stick it in cockade-like. It has a martial, and by no means disagreeable effect.
“Go, my dear freeholder, and if any chance calls you out of this transitory scene earlier than expected, the coroner shall sit lightly on your corpse. He shall not too anxiously enquire into the circumstances of blood found upon your razor. That might happen to any gentleman in shaving. Nor into your having been heard to express a contempt of life, or for scolding Louisa for what Julia did, and other trifling incoherencies.—Yours sincerely,
