In this case, the whole coterie of
the very shabbiest party that ever disgraced and divided a nation--I
mean the Whigs--are, I know, chuckling over that silly charge made by
Mr. Lamb on the hustings, and now confirmed by Lord Byron, of my having
belonged to a Whig club at Cambridge. Such a Whig as I then was, I am
now. I had no notion that the name implied selfishness and subserviency,
and desertion of the most important principles for the sake of the least
important interest. I had no notion that it implied anything more than
an attachment to the principles the ascendency of which expelled the
Stuarts from the Throne. Lord Byron belonged to this Cambridge club, and
desired me to scratch out his name, on account of the criticism in the
_Edinburgh Review_ on his early poems; but, exercising my discretion on
the subject, I did not erase his name, but reconciled him to the said
Whigs.
The members of the club were but few, and with those who
have any marked politics amongst them, I continue to agree at
this day. They were but ten, and you must know most of them--Mr.
W. Ponsonby, Mr.
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