United States or Guernsey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Romilly's passport, then, will be no good," thought I, and I was musing on the moral advantage to my uncle of his having refused to use it from the first, when Joseph in alarm cried "Hist I hear some one galloping hard after us. Let us whip on as fast as we can." But we had just reached the foot of a heavy ascent, and the pursuer gained upon us, and presently came up panting.
Napoleon was wrong in his estimate of Romilly's age. Romilly was sixty-one when he died. He was one of the greatest legal and social reformers of his age. His father was a Huguenot watchmaker who had settled in London, and the young Samuel Romilly had only an imperfect education to begin with. By intense study he became possessed of wide and varied culture.
He felt the sleep already upon his eyes. All the physical exhilaration of his unlived youth seemed to be dancing in Philip Romilly's veins when he awoke the next morning to find an open porthole, the blue sea tossing away to infinity, and his steward's cheerful face at his bedside. "Bathroom steward says if you are ready, sir, he can arrange for your bath now," the man announced.
Came home: found my father dressing to go to Sir Samuel Romilly's we two were to dine at Lady Levinge's; while we were dressing a long note from Miss Berry, sent by her own maid, to apologise for a mistake of her servants who had said "not at home," and to entreat we would look in on her this evening much hurried.
The learned and good Sir Samuel Romilly's father was Peter Romilly, jeweller, of Frith Street, Soho. Such were the origins of some of the men who won the prizes of the law in comparatively recent times.
The expenses of Sir Samuel Romilly's election could not have been less than twenty thousand pounds, it might have been more, for it will be recollected that eight thousand were subscribed in one day at the meeting held at the Crown and Anchor in London; so that for every vote given to Sir S. Romilly it cost at least ten pounds a man; and for every vote given to Davis and Protheroe, supposing the number to have been 3,000 and the expenses of each 30,000l. every vote must have cost twenty pounds a man; while any whole expenses, thither and back, and while I retrained there, did not exceed twenty-five pounds, about a shilling for each vote.
At any rate, he has proved himself to be the man for you; he has done for you what none of the milk-sop, miawling orators at Sir Samuel Romilly's meetings would have dared even to think of. They talk of freeing the city from the trammels of corruption; they talk of giving you freedom of election; they talk of making a stand for your rights. What stand have they made?
The White Lion candidate and the Club, of course, according to their ancient and laudable custom, scattered their money profusely to purchase votes; they had an interest in doing so; but Mr. Protheroe's and Sir Samuel Romilly's appeared to be a bad speculation. Mr. Protheroe and his friends could not have expended less than twenty thousand pounds.
After Romilly's death in 1818, the cause was taken up by the Whig philosopher, Sir James Mackintosh, and made a distinct step in advance. Though there were still obstacles in the upper regions, a committee was obtained to consider the frequency of capital punishment, and measures were passed to abolish it in particular cases. Finally, in 1823, the reform was adopted by Peel.
Bathurst's life at a late election, the procession on Saturday was assailed by vollies of mud, stones, dead cats, &c. Mr. Davis fortunately escaped unhurt, except from one stone which struck his arm." Here are two things to be observed: first, that Davis, Protheroe, and Sir Samuel Romilly's friends, the friends of all of them, are here spoken of as co-operating. Aye, to be sure!
Word Of The Day