The Intellectual Decline of a Liberal Unionist

Mr. has long been known as an accomplished and courteous gentleman. He is a barrister, not unknown in the Royal Courts; he has a facile pen, always at the service of his friends, and at that of the editors of daily papers and monthly magazines; he has long earned a reasonable income, and has been a welcome guest at numerous dinner-tables; he is a model husband, and an indulgent father. Until the year 1885 all went well with him; but the Home Rule question upset him. Hitherto a mild and harmless Liberal, with no relish for the methods of some of his leaders, and not apt to go out of his way to look for political excitement, he suddenly developed into a Liberal Unionist of the deepest dye. The consequences were terrible. His briefs fell from him like scales, his popularity diminished, he neglected his private affairs, he became an anxious and harassed man. His contributions were declined with thanks. All of them, whether in prose or verse, dealt with a single theme, and dealt with it in a tone of bitterness and woe. We have a personal regard for poor, and, out of the sheaf of verses which he sent to The Reflector office, we tearfully select the following more or less degraded specimens. It is not as poems, but as specimens of intellectual decay, that they are printed:

The wretched man pursued his victim even to the death:

Nay, he pursued him beyond that bourne from which no traveller returns:

And to think that there is mere, much more, where this came from! Unhappy man!