PERSONAL CHAR.ACTER OF LORDS.
Our society is of too mixed a kind to permit any very essential distinctions to exist between the Peer and the Commoner ; and latterly it has been a mark of breeding to merge all differences in the general qualification of Gentleman. Nevertheless, it is impossible for the privileges, the titles, and the influence of It Peer to exist, without producing its effect on the individuals who are born to them and live under them. If you take the character of a British nobleman from any fine writer of the last century, you will find him praised for qualities which ho no longer peculiarly possesses, and which perhaps he never did possess—though it very possible that, from the smaller number of Peers, the greater care in their selection, and the rarer instances of poverty among them, a Peer was more distinguished then than he is now bi characteristic qualities,
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