rbr bpittator
The proceedings in the House of Peers, during the present session, have tended to sink the Aristocracy still lower in public estimation. The two parties' resemble the East Indian brawlers, who will spend' whole weeks in violent upbraidings, but take especial. care never to come to blows. The Whigs, however, after all their misdeeds, stand decidedly better with the nation than their factious opponents. The former are believed to he well-intentioned, though timid; the latter, faithless and malevolent to popular freedom. Into these two great classes are the Peers divided. How is it po,Nible that they should be held in respect by their fellow subjects? It was the penetrating Machiavelli who remarked, that an aristocracy never long survived the contempt of the people. The institu- tion becomes at the same time detestahile et eatterettt. Unless the House of Peers is reformed, it needs no prophet to foresee that it will speedily be numbered among the things that have been,
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