Doctor Thorne | Page 2

and all their numerous chaplains, vicars, and
ecclesiastical satellites, do make up a society sufficiently powerful to
be counted as something by the county squirearchy. In other respects
the greatness of Barsetshire depends wholly on the landed powers.
Barsetshire, however, is not now so essentially one whole as it was
before the Reform Bill divided it. There is in these days an East
Barsetshire, and there is a West Barsetshire; and people conversant
with Barsetshire doings declare that they can already decipher some
difference of feeling, some division of interests. The eastern moiety of
the county is more purely Conservative than the western; there is, or
was, a taint of Peelism in the latter; and then, too, the residence of two
such great Whig magnates as the Duke of Omnium and the Earl De
Courcy in that locality in some degree overshadows and renders less
influential the gentlemen who live near them.
It is to East Barsetshire that we are called. When the division above
spoken of was first contemplated, in those stormy days in which gallant
men were still combatting reform ministers, if not with hope, still with
spirit, the battle was fought by none more bravely than by John
Newbold Gresham of Greshamsbury, the member for Barsetshire. Fate,
however, and the Duke of Wellington were adverse, and in the

following Parliament John Newbold Gresham was only member for
East Barsetshire.
Whether or not it was true, as stated at the time, that the aspect of the
men with whom he was called on to associate at St Stephen's broke his
heart, it is not for us now to inquire. It is certainly true that he did not
live to see the first year of the reformed Parliament brought to a close.
The then Mr Gresham was not an old man at the time of his death, and
his eldest son, Francie Newbold Gresham, was a very young man; but,
notwithstanding his youth, and notwithstanding other grounds of
objection which stood in the way of such preferment, and which, it
must be explained, he was chosen in his father's place. The father's
services had been too recent, too well appreciated, too thoroughly in
unison with the feelings of those around him to allow of any other
choice; and in this way young Frank Gresham found himself member
for East Barsetshire, although the very men who elected him knew that
they had but slender ground for trusting him with their suffrages.
Frank Gresham, though then only twenty four years of age, was a
married man, and a father. He had already chosen a wife, and by his
choice had given much ground of distrust to the men of East
Barsetshire. He had married no other than Lady Arabella De Courcy,
the sister of the great Whig earl who lived at Courcy Castle in the west;
that earl who not only had voted for the Reform Bill, but had been
infamously active in bringing over other young peers so to vote, and
whose name therefore stank in the nostrils of the staunch Tory squires
of the county.
Not only had Frank Gresham so wedded, but having thus improperly
and unpatriotically chosen a wife, he had added to his sins by becoming
recklessly intimate with his wife's relations. It is true that he still called
himself a Tory, belonged to the club of which his father had been one
of the most honoured members, and in the days of the great battle got
his head broken in a row, on the right side; but, nevertheless, it was felt
by the good men, true and blue, of East Barsetshire, that a constant
sojourner at Courcy Castle could not be regarded as a consistent Tory.
When, however, his father died, that broken head served him in good

stead: his sufferings in the cause were made the most of; these, in
unison with his father's merits, turned the scale, and it was accordingly
decided, at a meeting held at the George and Dragon, at Barchester, that
Frank Gresham should fill his father's shoes.
But Frank Gresham could not fill his father's shoes; they were too big
for him. He did become member for East Barsetshire, but he was such a
member--so lukewarm, so indifferent, so prone to associate with the
enemies of the good cause, so little willing to fight the good fight, that
he soon disgusted those who most dearly loved the memory of the old
squire.
De Courcy Castle in those days had great allurements for a young man,
and all those allurements were made the most of to win over young
Gresham. His wife, who was a year or two older than himself, was a
fashionable woman, with thorough Whig tastes and aspirations, such as
became the daughter of a great Whig earl; she