The auction between Cleon and the
sausage-seller in Aristophanes is a fair caricature of what would be
always going on. Such an institution would be a perpetual blister
applied to the most peccant parts of human nature. It amounts to
offering 658 prizes for the most successful flatterer, the most adroit
misleader, of a body of his fellow-countrymen. Under no despotism
has there been such an organised system of tillage for raising a
rich crop of vicious courtiership.* When, by reason of pre-eminent
qualifications (as may at any time happen to be the case), it is
desirable that a person entirely without independent means, either
derived from property or from a trade or profession, should be brought
into Parliament to render services which no other person accessible
can render as well, there is the resource of a public subscription; he
may be supported while in Parliament, like Andrew Marvell, by the
contributions of his constituents. This mode is unobjectionable for
such an honour will never be paid to mere subserviency: bodies of
men do not care so much for the difference between one sycophant and
another as to go to the expense of his maintenance in order to be
flattered by that particular individual. Such a support will only be
given in consideration of striking and impressive personal
qualities, which, though no absolute proof of fitness to be a national
representative, are some presumption of it, and, at all events, some
guarantee for the possession of an independent opinion and will.
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