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ment, altogether free from taxation, while their poorer brethren toiled under the weight of burdens to the amount of L.25,000,000 a-year, was, to the last degree, exasperating.

It added immensely to the weight of these grievances that the privileges of nobility were perpetual, and descended with titles of honour to all the members of a family indiscriminately. The effect of this was to create an exclusive class whose rights never expired, which passed from father to son even to the last generation, and which had nothing in common, either in point of interest, feeling, or habits, with the inferior classes of society. Custom and prejudice, omnipotent with this order in every country, precluded any young men of noble birth from entering into commerce or business of any sort; and the necessary consequence was, that the whole were thrown upon the offices in the disposal of government; and every situation, however inconsiderable, was sought after by a host of noble competitors, to the utter exclusion of every person of plebeian descent. But for the poverty of this needy race, which rendered marriage unfrequent, save in the eldest son of the family, and the excessive dissolution of their manners, France would have been overspread like Spain by a race of haughty idlers, whose 480,000 Hidalgos, too proud to do any thing for themselves, spend their lives in basking in the sunshine in their provincial

towns.

How different in all these respects is the aristocracy of England, and how totally inapplicable are all the ideas drawn from the situation of foreign to the important duties of the British nobility! No exemption from taxation, no exclusive privileges, no invidious distinctions, separate them from the other classes in the state. By a fortunate custom, which has done more, says Hallam, for the liberties of England than any other single circumstance in its domestic policy, the distinction of titles has been confined from time immemorial to the eldest son of the family, while the younger branches, in the estimation of law commoners, speedily acquire the ideas of that class, and, in the space of a few generations, become indistinguishable from the ge

neral body of the community. In this way the younger branches of the nobility, the curse and bane of continental monarchies, have become one of the most useful and important classes in the British community, because they form a link between the otherwise discordant branches of society, and blend the dignified manners of elevated, with the vigour and activity of humble birth. Here, in the splendid language of Mr Sheridan, is no sullen line of demarcation for ever separat ing the higher from the lower orders; but all is one harmonious whole, in sensibly passing as in the colours of the prism from the bright glitter of the orange, where the nobility bask in the sunshine of rank and opu lence, to the sober grey of the indigo, where the peasant toils in the shade of humble life.

The prerogative of the Crown for the creation of Peers has been li berally exercised of late years: and the nobles are now four times as numerous as they were during the great Rebellion. Who have been the men, who have thus been elevated to the rank of hereditary legislators? The greatest and most illustrious characters of their day-the statesmen who have sustained the country by their exertions-the heroes who have led its armies to victory-the sailors who shook the world with its fleets

the patriots who have vindicated its freedom by their courage. The names of Marlborough and Wellington, of Abercrombie and Anglesey, of Lynedoch and Hill, recall the most splendid passages in the military an nals of Britain: those of Nelson and St Vincent, of Howe and Duncan, the most glorious triumphs of its Navy: those of Chatham and Somers, of Grenville and Wellesley, the most illustrious efforts of its statesmen. Such men not only add dignity to the assembly in which they are placed, but the prospect of obtaining so brilliant a distinction for their fa mily, operates powerfully on the exertions of the profession to which they belong. When Nelson run his own vessel between two line-of-battle ships at St Vincent's, and boarded them both at the same time, he exclaimed, "A peerage, or Westminster Abbey !" and a similar feeling operates universally, not only upon

those who have such a distinction placed within their reach, but who can hope by strenuous exertion ultimately to obtain it. No man can doubt that the prospect of hereditary honours being conferred upon the leaders of the Army and Navy, operates most powerfully in elevating the feelings, stimulating the exertions, and sustaining the courage of those employed in these services; and that but for such distinctions, not only would their caste in society be lowered, but their national usefulness diminished.

By immemorial custom also, the Chancellor of England, a lawyer, and generally elevated from the inferior stations of society, is placed at the head of the House of Peers. It is a proud thing, as Mr Canning well observed, for the Commons of England, "to see a private individual, elevated from obscurity solely by the force of talent, take precedence of the Howards, the Talbots, and the Percys; of the pride of Norman ancestry, equally with the splendour of royal descent." The Chancellor is usually a man raised from the lower ranks. Every lawyer knows that none but those trained to exertion, by early and overbearing necessity, can sustain the herculean labour of rising to the head of the English Bar. It was thus that Lord Hardwicke, Lord Loughborough, Lord Mansfield, Lord Thurlow, Lord Ellenborough, Lord Eldon, and Lord Lyndhurst arose; they were trained in the school of necessity to the exertions requisite to rise to the summit of so terrible an ascent. In this way the peerage is perpetually renovated by the addition of talent and energy from the walks of humble life, and the lower orders are attached to the country, by the possibility of rising to the highest stations which its go

vernment can afford.

While, therefore, the aristocracy of the continental states, by rigidly closing the door against plebeian ability, both weakened the state by excluding its ablest members, and irritated the lower orders by establishing an impassable barrier between them and the higher; the aristocracy of England, by throwing open their doors to receive the most eminent of its citizens, both brought the talents of the great body of the people to

bear upon the fortunes of the state, and elevated the dignity of their own body by the successive acquisition of the most illustrious members of the commonwealth. The peerage of England, therefore, so far from being a restraint upon the talent, or a burden upon the energies, of the lower orders, is the highest encou ragement to their vigour and exertions, and holds forth the glittering prize which stimulates the talent and ensures the fortunes of thousands who are never destined to obtain it. Few indeed are destined to rise from private life like a Hardwicke, a Mansfield, or an Eldon; but every man in these situations recollects the rise of these illustrious men; and the confidence in their own good fortune, which is so universal in the outset of life, stimulates multitudes, from these examples, to exertions, which, if they do not lead to titles, at least contribute to success and usefulness.

It is a common theme of complaint with the radical journals, that the aristocracy usurp an undue share of patronage in the Navy, the Army, and the Church; and that unless a young man has connexions possessing parliamentary interest, he has no chance of elevation in any of these lines. There never was a complaint worse founded. That the younger branches of the nobility are to be found in great numbers in these useful and honourable lines, is in a peculiar manner the glory and the blessing of England; that instead of wasting their days in listless indolence, as in Spain, or in unceasing gallantry, as in Italy, they are to be found actively engaged in real business; discharging the duty of country curates, or enduring the hardships of naval, or facing the dangers of mili tary life, without any distinction from their humbler brethren. stroy this invaluable distinction ; banish the sons of the opulent from active employment, and where will they be found? At the gaming-table or the race-course; corrupting the wives of the citizens, or squandering the fortunes of ages. It is in vain to expect that men will ever live without an object: if a good one is taken away, a bad one will speedily succeed: if they are prevented from following the career of honour and

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usefulness, they will embrace that
of sensuality and corruption.
If indeed the Aristocracy had the
monopoly of any of these depart-
ments, the exclusive privilege would
be equally injurious to themselves
and their inferiors. But this neither
is, nor in the present state of hu-
man affairs can be, the case. No man
can pretend that the army, the navy,
or the church, are exclusively in the
hands of the nobility. Every indi-
vidual is acquainted in his own lit-
tle circle with numbers who are
rising in these professions without
the aid of any aristocratic connexion.
But if the complaint be only that
they encounter the nobility in their
struggle through life, then we reply
that such competition is the greatest
public advantage. Such civil contests
between the different classes of so-
ciety are always for the advantage of
the whole community, however pain-
ful they may be to individuals. With-
out them, the energy of both would
be enfeebled: aristocratic indolence
would relapse into inactivity-de-
mocratic vigour into sordid ambition.
Nor need popular enterprise envy
the sons of the great the advantages
which in the outset of life belong to
elevated birth: those very advan-
tages in general prove their ruin, be-
cause they do not habituate the mind
to the vigorous exertions essential
to lasting reputation.

The prevailing tone and character of all the professions into which the Aristocracy generally enter, is unquestionably greatly elevated by the intermixture of honourable feeling which they occasion. If Montesquieu was right in asserting that the principle of monarchy is honour, every day's experience must convince us that the influence of the Aristocracy is not less salutary in sustaining the dignified feeling of private life. Whence is it that England, so long immersed in commercial pursuits, which Napoleon styled a nation of shopkeepers, still retains so much of the elevating influence of ancient chivalry that her warriors exhibit such undecaying valour, her legislators such moral courage, her higher orders such dignified manners? How has it happened that the progress of opulence, fatal to the growth of all other states, has here been so long co-existent with public virtue that

a thousand years of prosperity has neither sapped the foundation of public or private integrity; and that though grey in years of renown, she still teems with the energy of youthful ambition? The answer is to be found in the happy combination of the nobility and the people; in the tempering the pride of aristocratic birth by the vigour of popular enterprise, and elevating the standard of plebeian ambition by the infusion of chivalrous feeling. Sever the connexion between these two principles, and what will the nation become? An assemblage of calculating tradesmen, possessing no higher standard of manners than the Americans, and no nobler feelings of patriotism than the Dutch.

The stability of the European monarchies, compared with the ephemeral duration of the Eastern dynasties, is chiefly to be ascribed to the hereditary descent of honours and estates in particular families. It was seemingly an institution of Providence, destined to secure the ascendency of European civilisation and the Christian religion over Oriental barbarism and Mahometan degradation, that the Barbarians who settled in the Roman empire, all by common consent established primogeniture and the hereditary descent of honours: while the divisions of the same tribes who settled in the Eastern empires, adopted the system, that all personal distinctions should expire with the first possessor. In this single circumstance will be found the remote cause of the steady progress, uniform policy, and stable government of the European states, compared with the fluctuating dynasties, perpetual convulsions, and declining prosperity of the Eastern empires. The want of a hereditary noblesse has inflicted the same evils on Persia and Turkey, which the want of an hereditary crown has occasioned to Poland.

Permanence of design and system can never be obtained till permanence of interest is established. When honours expire, and fortunes are divided on the death of an individual, the seed which was beginning to expand, is again restored, upon every case of individual dissolution, to its native earth; and the succeeding generation, actuated by no common

interest, is tossed on the sea of life, without any definite or permanent object. The fortunes of the state crumble with the successive dispersion of individual accumulation; and generation after generation succeeds, without any addition either to the national stability, or any improvement in the national fortune.

It is easy to declaim, now that we have obtained the advantages of regular government, against the tyranny and oppression of the feudal nobility; without that institution, European civilisation would have become extinct during the anarchy of the dark ages, or yielded to the fury of Mahometan conquest. All that we now possess, or that distinguishes us from the Asiatic people-our laws, our liberties, our religion-have been preserved by the barrier of the feudal aristocracy. "Gratefully we must acknowledge," says Hallam," that the territorial nobility were, during the dark ages, the chief support not only against foreign invasion, but domestic tyranny; and that violence would have rioted without control, if, when the people were poor and disunited, the barons had not been independent and free."* What was it that enabled European valour to stem the torrent of Mahometan conquest-who saved Christian civilisation from Asiatic oppression on the field of Tours-who combated the forces of the Saracens in their own domains, and fought the battle of European freedom on the fields of Palestine? Who expelled the Arabs from Spain, and maintained for eight centuries an uninterrupted contest with the Moorish spoiler? The nobility of Europe--the territorial barons, permanently interested in the soil by the hereditary possession of estates, and actuated by undecaying spirit from the descent of family honours. Compare the steady progress, regular government, and unceasing improvement, of the European states, with the perpetual vacillation, periodical anarchy, and general slavery of the Asiatic dynasties, and the immeasurable benefits of an hereditary nobility must appear obvious to the most inconsiderate ob

server.

The freedom which is now so much the object of deserved eulogium, was nursed in its cradle by the feudal nobility. It was beneath the shadow of the castle-wall that industry, civilisation, and improvement, first took root; in every part of Europe the earliest seeds of liberty expanded under the protection of hereditary power. The traveller, as he glides along the Rhine, or descends the rapid stream of the Rhone, or skirts the tower-clad heights of the Appenines, can still discern in the villages which are clustered round the roots of the castellated heights, the influence of aristocratic power in protecting the first efforts of laborious industry. Magna Charta was extorted from a pusillanimous monarch by a combination of the feudal nobility: the early liberties of France, Germany, and Spain, were established by the same influence, in opposition to the encroachments of royal power. For centuries before the people had thought of moving in defence of their liberties, or were capable of understanding the meaning of freedom, it had been the object of repeated contests on the part of the hereditary nobility.

Nor let it be imagined, that these advantages are all past-that a new era has opened in human affairsand that having made use of an hereditary nobility in the infancy of society, we can now with safety discard their assistance. They are not less needed in the advanced than the early stages of nations: the dangers to freedom are as great now as in the days of Magna Charta: the power by which it is assailed is more formidable than the array of the Plantagenet kings.

The danger to be apprehended now is, that, by the destruction of the power of the nobility, we shall be handed over, first, to the horrors of popular licentiousness, and, next, to the tranquillity of undisturbed despotism. This is not a fanciful apprehension-it is the uniform history of the decay of freedom in past ages: future historians will probably point to the present Reform Bill, as the first step in the extinction of British freedom.

• Middle Ages.

How long did the liberties of England survive the destruction of the House of Peers, and the assumption of absolute power by the Long Parliament? What was the consequence of the almost total annihilation of the Norman aristocracy by the wars of the Roses? The despotism of the Tudors-the cruel severity of Henry VIII-the fires of Smithfield -the arbitrary reign of Elizabeth. It is a fact well worthy of notice, that the most arbitrary reign in the English annals, that in which the greatest number of executions (72,000) took place on the scaffold, the greatest confiscation of private property was inflicted, the most arbitrary alterations in the laws effected, succeeded immediately the virtual extinction of the feudal nobility by the civil wars. The spirit of the Commons perished with its support in the territorial aristocracy: it seemed as if the Barons of Runnymede had been succeeded by the senate of Tiberius. To such a degree of pliant servility did the Commons arrive, that they actually declared the King's proclamations equal to acts of Parliament, and petitioned the monarchs for a list of members to be returned in the succeeding Parliament!*

How long did the liberties of the French monarchy outlive the decline of the feudal nobility, under the crafty policy of Mazarine and Richlieu? What became of the boasted liberties of Arragon and Castile, when their nobles were crushed by the despotism of the Austrian monarchs, or corrupted by the wealth of American slavery? After the Patricians were corrupted, and the Plebeians left alone in presence of military power, how long did the freedom of Rome survive? When the nobility fought the last battle of Roman virtue at Pharsalia, did not the people fill the ranks of the usurper, and join with him in forging chains for their country? Did not the children of the very men who had burned with Gracchus in the forum, and shaken by democratic violence the firm bulwark of the republic, break, under the dictator, the liberties of their country, and extinguish its last embers on the field of Philippi? Did not the citizens

of Rome, worn out with dissensions of democratic violence, and shattered by the collision of military with po pular power, fly for refuge under the shadow of despotism, and seek in the servility of the empire, that security which could no longer be found amidst the storms of the republic?

The destruction of Roman free. dom was immediately owing to the people revolting against the aristocracy. The firmness and steadiness of the senate had long preserved the fortunes and favoured the growth of the republic; but when plebeian ambition prevailed over aristocratic power, the vacillation and convulsions immediately commenced, which were the sure forerunners of military despotism. Marius, the first consul of plebeian blood, brought the democracy into immediate collision with the aristocracy; and, but for the magnanimous surrender of absolute power by Sylla, the liberties of Rome had perished in the first struggle. The democracy after wards chose Cæsar as their leader: the eloquent apologist of Catiline's Conspiracy commanded all the suffrages of the popular party; and by a popular act, in opposition to the most vehement resistance from the senate, they twice conferred upon him, for five years, the important province of Gaul, with five legions, The subjugation of Rome, therefore, and the extinction of its freedom, was only immediately owing to mi litary ambition; its remote cause is to be found in the democratic spirit which had placed power in the hands of that ambition-and this was the work of the plebeians, blindly rushing, like our reformers, upon their own ruin, out of jealousy to their hereditary legislators.

Freedom in the Italian republics was entirely of aristocratical birth ; In the freest period of Italian history, 20,000 citizens in the great towns of Florence, Genoa, Milan, Venice, Pisa, and Sienna, gave law to as many millions of people. When the progress of opulence, when five centuries of civilisation, had cor rupted the citizens of the republics, what became of Italian freedom? Did the people alone, without the

• Mackintosh's England, vol. ii. p. 342.

+ Sismondi.

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