Ere at years of discretion,
He sat a whole Session,
E'en Grantham made way for the boy.
Who's the fittest law-maker?
He that's first a law-breaker;
To catch thieves you a thief should employ.
What a lordling it is,
With his carrotty phiz,
So cried up, so flattered, so built on.
You may oft take a rule
From a nickname at School,
And the boys named him old Lady Milton.
Oh patriot revered
Go shave for a beard!
Hie to Wentworth and finish this strife,
York, Malton, the county,
Disdained to be bound t'ye,
Go and cherish your nice little wife,
Oh! soon may she bear
You a fine son and heir;
Then ten oxen whole you may roast;
May Fitzwilliam carouse
With two boys in the house
Nor bewail Milton's Paradise Lost!
The contest lasted three weeks, while the actual polling occupied fifteen days, during which 25,120 votes were tendered. It is thus described in the Annals of Yorkshire:—
The county was in a state of the most violent agitation, party spirit being wound up to the highest pitch by the friends of the two noble families, and everything being done that money or personal exertion could accomplish; the roads in all directions were covered night and day with coaches, barouches, curricles, gigs, fly-waggons, and military cars with eight horses, conveying voters from the most remote parts of the county…. On the fifth day Lascelles passed his opponent and kept the lead till the 13th day, at the close of which the numbers stood,—Milton, 10,313; Lascelles, 10,255. Now the efforts were prodigious and the excitement maddening.
"All parties," wrote Mrs Stanhope, "consider themselves secure. Lord Milton met with more success than Mr Lascelles at Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster, and, I am sorry to add, Leeds. At Halifax, he had a very cold reception…. Mr Osbaldiston and another man were almost killed going in to vote, owing to the enormous crowd."
During all this time the state of York was indescribable, and since the public-houses were ordered by the candidates to supply gratis whatever refreshment the voters called for, the roads in every direction were lined with tipsy men who molested travellers, indulged in rioting, or slumbered in heaps by the roadside; so that, partly on account of the fatigue of travelling, but still more owing to the dangerous condition of the roads and of the city of York, the county gentlemen agreed together that the ladies who were entitled to vote should not exercise this privilege unless it should be found essential. [22]
At length the Poll closed, and amid unparalleled excitement it was found that the numbers stood thus:—
MR WILBERFORCE 11,806.
LORD MILTON 11,177.
Mr Lascelles 10,990.