“SIR JEFFERY DUNSTAN’S ADDRESS TO THE WORTHY ELECTORS OF THE ANCIENT BOROUGH OF GARRATT,
“NOW FIRST PUBLISHED BY R. RUSTED,—AUTHOR OF ‘THE GUILDHALL ORATORS,’ ETC., ETC., ETC.
“‘A tous ceux à qu’il appartiendra.’—Voltaire.” (Otherwise “to all whom it concerns.”)
The candidate’s address is one of those confused harangues in which a number of subjects are incongruously involved together, known in later days as “a stump oration.” Among other subjects, Dr. Graham’s “celestial beds,” recruiting for the army, polygamy, and divorce, “the delicate brave men of the association” (volunteer force), and an “effete nobility,” are all mixed up according to the following sample:—
“As my honourable friend Mr. Burke cannot lessen the influence of the Crown, myself and his grace of Richmond are determined to accomplish it, by abolishing the use of money entirely; it being irrevocable poison to men’s souls, and the only remedy existing to prevent Bribery and Corruption; an evil which all the learned gentry of Westminster Hall could never annihilate; and I do faithfully declare, being no placeman, that I will not waste my fleeting moments like the four city members, whose elements of oratory what Roman senator could ever equal.”
The address rambles through a variety of absurdities, and concludes with a quotation from Rusted’s “Poems.” Whoever that worthy may have been, his lines have a fine air of burlesque grandiloquence, sense being subordinated to sound:—
“Like those brave men, who nobly shed their blood,
I’ll die a Martyr for my Country’s good.
Be to my Sov’reign ever just and true,
And yield to Britain what is Britain’s due.
Maintain the cause, and thro’ the globe impart
The bright effusions of an honest heart.”
The foregoing is found in the collection of ballads and broadsides which it delighted Miss Banks to accumulate. It will be remembered that eccentric lady was sister to Sir Joseph Banks, the president of the Royal Society, and one most instrumental in founding the British Museum, to which his collections and those of his sister were left. Among Miss Banks’s “Political and Miscellaneous Broadsides” is another electoral appeal to the same fanciful constituency; the document otherwise seems almost a literal copy of an actual address of the day:—