As to "beating the big drum in Sussex"—why, how often have I done it—to their delight—in their own pages! "Travesty of contemporary history"—this to their own omniscient Historicus!
Shows the "Champion Slugger" has struck home, though. Your hard-hitter—your fellow who smites, as the appreciative rustic (Sussex man, I wonder?) put it, "blooming hard, blooming high, and blooming often," generally scores—even in the cricket-field. I am the Bonnor of debate, the Thornton of the platform. And doesn't the "Ring" like it?
Knocked holes in the "Jubilee Session," I fancy, "Ignorant people who mistake the flush of fever for the bloom of health, the torpor of apoplexy for the tranquillity of sleep," think that blazing Balfour and stertorous Smith are never "a penny the worse" for my repeated poundings. Pooh! "Salted with fire"—my fire—they—not being of the indomitable race of Dizzy—will not "undecaying live" much longer. I prophesy—but no, prophecy, private prophecy at least, is not profitable. Don't suppose a Delphic priest, or even a Derby tipster ever wasted time in prophesying to himself!
Still—still, if Champion "slugging" combined with coruscation does lead to Leadership—as why should it not?—I fancy I know some one who will have what the sporting patterers call, I think, "a look in" one of these days. Parochial shrewdness is all very well, so is philosophical precision combined with Puritan fervour. But the "swashing blow" strikes home, and if the Unionist bucklers are beaten down thereby, let who likes cry "swashbuckler!" As to "shillelaghs"—why is not "blackthorns to the front!" the order of the hour?
[Left smiling.
In Troubled Waters.—Mr. Chamberlain is being praised in some quarters for saying that we should leave Irish affairs, and "attend to our own business." The inference seems to be that "Irish affairs" are not "our business." Is not Ireland as much a part of the United Kingdom as England, Scotland, or Wales? We shall be glad of a line from Mr. Chamberlain—when he gets to his Fisheries.