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I am not sure about bribery and corruption. It may be a bad thing, but many seem to think otherwise. Much may be said on both sides of the question. Oh! don't tell me of a worm selling his birthright for a mess of pottage: I never read of such worms in Buffon, or even in Pliny. But if they do exist in the human form, the baseness consists in the sale, not in the quid pro quo. A mess of pottage in itself is a very good thing—I should say, a very respectable thing; and no exchange can take away from it that character. Still, if what we give for it is an heirloom, coming from our ancestors and belonging to our posterity, the transaction is shabby, and not only shabby, but dishonest. If that is proved, I don't defend the worm. Trample on him by all means—jump on him. But beware of insulting the mess of pottage, which is as respectable as when newly out of the pot. Fancy the sale to have been effected by means of some other equivalent: and that, by the way, is just what puzzles me. There are numerous other equivalents, not a whit more respectable in themselves—many far less so—which not only escape all objurgation, but serve to lift the identical transaction out of the category of basenesses. This confuses a brain like mine, even to the length of doubting whether there is any harm in the thing at all. Let us turn the question over patiently. I confess I am slow; but 'slow and sure,' you know.

Bribery and corruption is a universal element in civilised society; but let us talk in the meantime of political bribery and corruption. It is the theory of the law—if the law really has a theory—that in the matter of a parliamentary canvass, every man, as a celebrated Irish minister expressed it, should stand upon his own bottom. By this poetical figure, Lord Londonderry meant that the man should depend upon himself, upon his own merits and character, without having recourse to any extrinsic means of working upon the judgment of others. It is likewise the theory of the law, that a man who suffers his judgment to be indirectly biassed is as bad as the other—and worse: that he is, in fact, a Worm, unfit to possess his birthright, of which he should be forthwith deprived. Well, this being premised: here is the Honourable Tom Snuffleton, who wants to represent our borough, but having neither merit nor character of any convertible kind, offers money and gin instead. The substitute is accepted; and Honourable Tom, slapping his waistcoat several times, congratulates the free and independent electors on having that day set a glorious example to the world, by thus exercising their birthright and upholding their palladium; and the affair is finished amid cheers and hiccups.

When I say, however, that the substitute is accepted, I do not mean that it is accepted by, or can be offered to the whole constituency. That would be a libel. There are many of the electors who have a soul above sovereigns, and who, if they could accomplish it, would never drink anything less than claret. These persons are ambitious of being noticed by the family of Honourable Tom. They are not hungry, but they take delight in a dinner in that quarter. They also feel intensely gratified by having their wives and daughters bowed to from the family carriage. A thousand considerations like these blind them to the absence of merit and character on the part of the candidate, and lay them open to that extrinsic influence which, according to the meaning of the law, is bribery and corruption. As for the man who takes his bribe, for the sake of convenience, in the direct, portable, and exchangeable form of a sovereign, he lays it out in any pleasure or distinction he, on his part, has a fancy for. If he is a dissolute person, he spends it in the public-house; if he is a proper-behaved husband, he gives his wife a new gown; if he is a respectable, serious individual, he devotes it to the conversion of the Wid-a-wak tribe in Central Africa, and gloats upon the name of John Higgins in the subscription-list. In whichever way, however, he may seek to gratify himself, he is neither better nor worse, so far as I can see, than the voter of more elegant aspirations: they have both been bribed; they are both corrupt; they have both sold their birthright.

This is a homely way of viewing the question, but it suffices. If we inquire into the motives of a hundred electors, we shall not find ten of them free from some alloy of self-interest, direct or indirect. In cases where the candidates are all equally good, equally bad, or equally indifferent, there may be no practical harm in this; but it is not a political but a moral question that is before us. The question is as to the bribe. If we are to be excused because of the nature of the solatium we accept, then should a thief successfully plead that it was not money he stole, but a masterpiece of Raphael. What I doubt is, whether they who have not been solely influenced by patriotic motives, have any right to cast stones at the free and independent elector who has sold his vote for a sovereign.

If the common saying be true, that 'every man has his price,' then are we all open to bribery and corruption; and the only difficulty lies in ascertaining the weak side of our nature. The distinction in this case is not between vice and virtue, but between the various positions in which we are placed. Money will do with some men; others, who would be shocked at the idea of taking money, will accept of something it has bought; others, again, who would spurn at both these, will have no objection to a snug little place for themselves or their dependents. The English, as a practical, straightforward people, take money—five to ten pounds being considered a fair thing for a vote, and no shame about it. The Scotch, as more calculating, like a situation; anything to put sons into, will do—a cadetship in India, a tide-waitership, a place in the Post-office, or a commission in the army. From a small Scotch country town, which we have in our eye, as many as fourteen lads in one year received appointments in the Excise; everybody knew what for: an election was in expectation. No money, however, being passed from hand to hand, the fathers of these said lads would look with horror on such cases of bribery as have given renown and infamy to Sudbury and St Alban's.

All men think all men sinners but themselves.

Happy this consciousness of innocence! How fortunate that we should be such a virtuous and discreet people! And thus does one's very notions of what is right become a marketable article. Where neither money nor place is wanted, a gracious look and an invitation to dinner may have quite a telling effect. In fact, the more refined men have become, through the action of circumstances, such as education and position, the more abstracted and attenuated is the equivalent they demand for their virtue; till we reach the highest grade of all, whose noble natures, as they are called, can be seduced only by affection and gratitude. Now observe: in all these cases the thing is the same, whether it be crime we have been tempted to commit, or mere illegality; the only distinction lies in the value of the quid pro quo. But is there a distinction even in that? I doubt the fact. I don't say there is none, but I doubt it. Value is entirely arbitrary. One man, at the lower end of the scale, sins for the sake of a pound; and another, at the higher end, does the same thing for the sake of a kindness. The two men place the same value on their several equivalents, and each finds his own irresistible. Are they not both equally guilty?

That a refined man is better than a coarse one, I admit. He is pleasanter, and not only so, but safer. We know his virtue to be secure from a thousand temptations before which meaner natures fall; and to a large extent, therefore, we feel him to be worthy of our trust. He will not betray us for a pound, or a dinner, or a place, or a coaxing word, or a condescending bow: but we must not go too far with him for all that. He has his price as surely as the meanest of his fellows; and let him only come in the way of a temptation he values as highly as the other values his miserable pound, and down he goes! Refined natures, therefore, are only comparatively trustworthy; and, however estimable or admirable they may be under other circumstances, when they do fail they are as guilty as the rest. It is a bad thing altogether, bribery and corruption is; and I don't object to your putting it down when it takes that material form of money you can so readily get hold of. But what I hate is the cant that is canted about it by those who have not even the virtue to take their equivalent on the sly. For it is a remarkable thing, that when this does not come in a material shape, such as you can count or handle, it is looked upon by the bribee as no bribe at all! Nay, in some cases he will glory in his crime, as if it were a virtue; and in all cases he will turn round upon his fellow-criminal—him of the vulgar sort—call him a worm, and throw that mess of pottage at him! This refined evil-doer may be as energetic as he pleases in his actions, but it would be well if he were a little more quiet in his words. If he looks within, he will find that the distinction on which he prides himself is wholly superficial; and that such language is very unbecoming the lips of one who might more truly, as well as more politely, say to corruption, thou art my father, and to the worm, thou art my mother and my sister.

The main cause of such anomalies I take to be, that there is among us a general want of earnestness. We do not believe in ourselves, or our duties, or our destinies. Our life has no theory, and we care only for outward forms and symbols. Our taste is shocked by the grossness of vice, but we have no quarrel with the thing itself; and if the people around us will only preserve a polished, or at least inoffensive exterior, that is all we demand. Why should we look below the surface in their case, when we do no such thing in our own? We feel amiable, genteel, and refined; we detest the appearance of low impropriety, and would take a good deal of trouble to put it down; we look very kindly on the world in general, if the low people who are in it would only become as decorous as ourselves. In the old republics, the case was different. There men had a theory, even if a bad one, and they stuck to it through good report and through bad report. The theory was the spirit of the community, and its members sacrificed to it their whole individuality. No wonder that such little political unities held together as if their component parts had been welded, and that they continued to do so till they came into collision, and, from their hardness and toughness, rubbed one another out.

Put down bribery and corruption: that is fair. And more especially put down open, shameless, and brutal bribery and corruption, for its very coarseness is, in itself, an additional crime. But no reform is efficacious that does not come from within; and when refined men wage war against vulgar vices, let them look sharply to their own. I do not say, that by taking thought they will be able to do entirely away with the seductive influence of a bow, or a dinner, or a kind action; and that, in spite of these, they will do their duty with the stern resolve of an ancient Spartan. But they will be less likely to yield to temptation, and the price of their virtue will at least mount higher and higher, which is as much as we can expect of human nature. The grand benefit, however, they will derive from the inquisition, is the lesson of tolerance it will teach. They will refrain, for shame's sake, from casting stones and calling names. They will see that the only part of the offence they can notice is vulgarity and ignorance, and they will quietly try to refine the one and enlighten the other.