Yet, as there were no cousins of the male branch extant, the lack of an heir was a serious omission, and to become the Earl of Romfrey, and be the last Earl of Romfrey, was a melancholy thought, however brilliant.  So sinks the sun:  but he could not desire the end of a great day.  At one time he was a hot Parliamentarian, calling himself a Whig, called by the Whigs a Radical, called by the Radicals a Tory, and very happy in fighting them all round.  This was during the decay of his party, before the Liberals were defined.  A Liberal deprived him of the seat he had held for fifteen years, and the clearness of his understanding was obscured by that black vision of popular ingratitude which afflicts the free fighting man yet more than the malleable public servant.  The latter has a clerkly humility attached to him like a second nature, from his habit of doing as others bid him:  the former smacks a voluntarily sweating forehead and throbbing wounds for witness of his claim upon your palpable thankfulness.  It is an insult to tell him that he fought for his own satisfaction.  Mr. Romfrey still called himself a Whig, though it was Whig mean vengeance on account of his erratic vote and voice on two or three occasions that denied him a peerage and a seat in haven.  Thither let your good sheep go, your echoes, your wag-tail dogs, your wealthy pursy manufacturers!  He decried the attractions of the sublimer House, and laughed at the transparent Whiggery of his party in replenishing it from the upper shoots of the commonalty:  ’Dragging it down to prop it up! swamping it to keep it swimming!’ he said.

He was nevertheless a vehement supporter of that House.  He stood for King, Lords, and Commons, in spite of his personal grievances, harping the triad as vigorously as bard of old Britain.  Commons he added out of courtesy, or from usage or policy, or for emphasis, or for the sake of the Constitutional number of the Estates of the realm, or it was because he had an intuition of the folly of omitting them; the same, to some extent, that builders have regarding bricks when they plan a fabric.  Thus, although King and Lords prove the existence of Commons in days of the political deluge almost syllogistically, the example of not including one of the Estates might be imitated, and Commons and King do not necessitate the conception of an intermediate third, while Lords and Commons suggest the decapitation of the leading figure.  The united three, however, no longer cast reflections on one another, and were an assurance to this acute politician that his birds were safe.  He preserved game rigorously, and the deduction was the work of instinct with him.  To his mind the game-laws were the corner-stone of Law, and of a man’s right to hold his own; and so delicately did he think the country poised, that an attack on them threatened the structure of justice.  The three conjoined Estates were therefore his head gamekeepers; their duty was to back him against the poacher, if they would not see the country tumble.  As to his under-gamekeepers, he was their intimate and their friend, saying, with none of the misanthropy which proclaims the virtues of the faithful dog to the confusion of humankind, he liked their company better than that of his equals, and learnt more from them.  They also listened deferentially to their instructor.