CHAPTER II.
SPIRIT OF THE PEERAGE AT DIFFERENT EPOCHS.
A CLOSE examination of the history of the House of Peers will greatly enlighten the student of our Constitution as to the compo- sition of that body since it was regularly constituted. He will be driven to the conclusion that the House not only is, but always has been, a very bad house indeed, viewing it as a part of the machine of government. In the earlier times, it may be consi- dered as composed of petty sovereigns, who were combined into one assembly rather with a view to their being managed by the principal Sovereign, than with any regard to the interests of the Nation. The King always had enough to give away to create such a division among them as secured his general authority, and made him lord both of the life and property of every indi- vidual peer of the House. It was a doctrine maintained by the members of the Parliaments of ELIZABETH, that the Queen had as much right to their lives and all that belonged to them, as she had to her throne, or they themselves to their estates, in rela- tion to their fellow-subjects. It was openly said, she had given, and she might take away. Practically, however, this was not true. The House of Lords was dangerous, if by any chance it could be found united: pains were therefore necessary to keep it at least ready for division. The Peers were _always ready to give up a Scapegoat.
In the earlier reigns, a peerage meant sovereignty of a greater or less extent. The nobles, when they were aggrieved or chagrined, struek up a party and fought—were successful and made terms, or failed aad were beheaded. A barony of the early times scarcely ever advanced three steps without a forfeiture : a summons to Parliament seems. to have been like enticing the rat into the trap.
After the union of the Roses, some years of peace produced its invariable effect—a strenathening of the middle ranks, and an in- crease ofintelligence and reflection. The baronial influence declined; and, as public affairs became more complicated, men of abilities, with an European standard of acquirement, became necessary. Such men, serving long and obtaining great wealth, were mixed up with the old Barons, and produced an amalgamation which has been going on ever since. The lawyers and the statesmen got a footing which they have maintained; and as the feudal authority rapidly declined before the rise of the middle ranks—or, in other words, of a Public—it became absolutely necessary to manage the existing bodies of legislation by other means than a talk of knights' fees or an enumeration of retainers.
Another species of wealth besides land was introduced—the wealth of commerce : great fortunes were acquired by wool, by shipping, by the purchase and cultivation of old baronial posses- sions. In the time of JAMES the First, mere monied fortune be- came a consideration ; and as the exchequer was low, and JAMES a scholastic and a peaceable monarch, and took a civilian's view of such things, baronetcies, peerages, and other honours, were sold. Some of those now existing were bought in that reign. Henceforward, the House of Lords becomes a strange admixture of many sorts of men, and began to approximate to its present parti-coloured texture. A collision gradually approached between the prerogative of the King and the growing power of the People : with an eye to this, CHARLES the First packed the House of Lords as best suited the views he intended. On the whole, the Peers answered his expec- tation, but the necessities of the treasury had introduced too many modern capitalists, to make it the easy-working chamber that might have been desired. Nevertheless, the number of promotions to the Peerage were immense in the reign of the First CHARLES. After the Restoration, CHARLES the Second had all his ancient adherents to reward, and, what was more imperative, his new friends. The Peerage was therefore to him a treasury, which he squandered as he did all his other possessions. Had JAMES the Second had time, he would have made every man of property he could convert, a peer. At the Revolution, the new Monarch had the most difficult game to play that was ever put into the hands of power. He had his foreign wars to carry on, and a divided nation to rule. There were two courts, one at London and the other at St. Germain's ; and the nobles and the people, with whom loyalty was a species of religion, and whose notions of the ends of government were of the most confused kind, cast a repentant look back upon the vio- lent measures they had been driven into. The Peerage was . a resource : Lords were made, that, in their own elevation, they might forget the depression of their ancient. Monarch. It was a means of calming faction, and of rewarding service, of which no one would stand more in need than the -Prince of ORANGE. When ANNE ascended the throne, the parties became more evenly balanced, and all persons began to look for a second Restoration of the old line. Hence different principles of government, and continual changes of administration, and fresh batches of peers. There were now three courts : the Queen, the Pretender, and the Successor—each had. their adherents, and as each prevailed, the reward of a peerage was granted, either in gratitude or in expec- tation of service. The First GEORGE had a similar game to play : during the earlier part of his reign, he was bound to keep his friends and gain his enemies ; and he often preferred the cowardly policy of trying to win over the latter, while he neglected to secure the former.
With Sir ROBERT 'WALPOLE came the reign of finance : each party had been bribed to such an extent, that it became impera- tive on a Minister to find new resources. GEORGE the First said of WALPOLE, that he could make geld of stones. The country was now to bleed through the purse : that could only be done through the two Houses of Parliament, and they were paid for standing by and lending a hand. And if payment of one kind were not ac- ceptable, the coin was changed. Sometimes it was money, sometimes place and power, sometimes honour. The House of Peers was the hospital of the patriots: when they had fouelit a decent time in the arena of the Commons, like PULTENEV and PITT, they retired into the House of Lords, as a soldier or sailor retreats upon Chelsea or Greenwich. The people however, still advanced in wealth and consequence, just as money increases at compound interest. The efforts to keep the public in a due state of subjection became more and more vigorous: the great engine of Ikroughmongering was brouv,tht to a most effectual bearing. Boroughs were in fact the Count my; he who had them, had it. The slenderest portion of this property became precious, in proportion as place, pension, power, and ho- nour were valuable. What, then, became the natural reward of the possessor of this property—the pay of a Boroughmonger ? Of course, the highest honour the state could bestow—a peerage. There are, however, other influences besides boroughs: it will not do to have a silent House of Commons—votes alone will not satisfy the public: there must be semblance of deliberation and persuasion. Oratory, after boroughs, bore the highest price. Next came Law : it was a .point, in the management of the nation, to have the lawyers in leash. A peerage has been the sop of that Cerberus the Law, and has sufficed to keep the triple hydra, I
Chancery, King's Bench, and dbmmon Pleas, in smooth-tongued and gentle-voiced unison with the Administration.
When a Ministry has got the House of Commons in its grasp, by means of borough influence, places, and pensions,—and when the law is subservient, and orators are properly stimulated to throw over all the dazzling charms of eloquence, and to entertain the world with mock combats and gladiatorial exhibitions of party violence,—it might seem that the imposition of government was complete. It is not so : there is not only a limit to pecuniary re- sources, but also to titular honours. If honours become common, they cease to be honourable. The Army and the Navy have been made tools of for this object. If any thing is intrinsically honourable, it is the sacrifice to his country which a man makes of his life in battle, and the courage and invention by which he meets and circumvent;; her enemies. Every country has its reward for such achievements ; our highest reward is the peerage, and it has beea deservedly conferred —but, on the part of the donors, with a view of their own. The soldier or the sailor has been gratifieel with the distinction that placed to'all appearances, on a level with the most ancient and dis- tinguished authorities of his native country : it is but a slight mark—a cross, a patent, a title—any mark, in short, that the nation will fix upon which ;satisfies the enthusiastic defenders of their country whether by land or sea. They are assuredly not conscious that it is their own solid glory which is one of the most essential bulwarks of the Peerage. It is so, however; the People seeing that such men as NELSON and COLLINGWOOD, HOWE, JERVIS, DUNCAN, and latterly WELLESLEY, were placed among the Lords, drew the natural conclusion that the House to which they were added was the real temple of Fame.
in the late reigns, it will be observed, that the acquisitions ob- tained by the House of Lords in the shape of military and naval distinctions is unusually great : the reason is plain—military and naval ability were wanted. The Administration had .first of all ignorantly involved itself in a war with its Colonies in America, and then again in a most impolitic war (the interest of the whole Country being considered) with France. The reign of GEORGE the Third was a reign of war—hence the acquisit:ons the House of Lords made in the shape of glory: it was also a reign of libels and prosecutions—lawyers are necessary to keep the people in order—hence the vast acquisitions it made in law. To support a warrior in his old age, and not only him but his amily, is con- genial with our best sentiments and our best interests ; but to be greatly taxed in order to support in extravagance the progeny of men who have already made large fortunes by JUDGERY (as one of our correspondents terms it), and that to the third and fburth generation, is hard. We value law—we value just judg- ment; but it is not either law or judgment that has been bought by successive Administrations—it is servility : by servility we mean, that Chancellors and Judges have for ages joined, for a clue con- sideration, in the task of making the • people believe that they are the best constitutioned, best administered, and, though most highly taxed, still the happiest and most enviable nation in the world.
The Church has been managed as well as the Law and the Army and the Navy, and with a similar view to government ; but we must say, the Church has yielded itself up even a more pliant aid willing victim than the Law itself. It has even been more magnificently paid—and in the lucre it professes to despise. The Army and the Navy have alone been remunerated, except in one er two marked instances, in empty honour. The way of a Bishop to his see is a rnost curious path. An examination of the claims of the existing Lords Spiritual will show the working of this part of the machinery. The end to be answered by the Bench of Bishops, is to insure a certain number of servile votes where service is of use, and to have a class of men on the bench who, by preserving a solemn aspect, and professing an obscure learning, be it Greek or Hebrew, shall give the people to understand they are a peculiar order, devoted to something mystical, and beyond vulgar apprehension, while at the same time it is cultivated for the general good—a good, it is true, which arrives to them by remote channels, known only to the initiated.
The qualities of a Bishop are, according to the long-established Tory creed, servility, decorum, and recondite learning—cceteris parzbus, the relative of a Boroughmonger is to be preferred ; and since it does so happen that almost any Boroughmonger's cousin or brother may be both servile and decorous, and as the learning is readily procured or pretended, he is generally preferred.
The Lords Spiritual may be divided into very few classes. First come the men of aristocratical connexion ; for to be brother to a lord, is next to being chosen of God. Among the present Peers of this order, the names of RYDER, JENKINSON, BAGOT, PERCY, VERNON, speak for themselves.
The literature which has taken the place of the occult science already mentioned, is the Greek language—any other would have done, provided it were sufficiently distinct from the science of go- vernment. This is the acquirement which of late years has been all-sufficient. Eminence in Christian knowledge was not de- manded; pastoral anxiety, doctrinal scrupulousness—all these were troublesome. But a man might go to the profoundest depths of RH anapwstic chorus, or probe the corruptest passages of a tra- gedy of EURIPIDES, without troubling the Government about his vote, and at the same time by means of the said Greek, which it must be said is sacred in prejudice, and with the aid of certain conventional solemnities, be fully equal to the making of a due Impression On the people. BLONFIELD, Bishop of London, is a Prosody Bishop ; his fame rests on the arrangement of certain plays of YEsowsreus, while it would be ruin to him to witness one of our own at Covent Garden. All that MONK, Bishop of Gloucester has done, is an edition of certain plays of Euar- PIDES. KAYE, of Lincoln, has a reputation solely founded on his knowledge of Greek. CAREY, of St. Asaph, has written several hooks of Latin Prosody ; the Latin would not, however, have been sufficient, had he not also been Master of Westminster School, and thereby connected with a rising aristocracy. HUNTINGFORD, of Hereford, has the same claim ; he was Master of Winchester School, and has published a book of Greek exercises. The pre- sent Administration, as yet scarcely understanding the ground they are upon, have proceeded on similar principles : the only Bishop they have had to appoint has no merit but that of being of their side, as the others were of the other side, and being, like them, a Greek scholar, who published a Greek Prosody. Some others, to be sure, have direct political claims.- MARSH, of Peter- borough, wrote a defence of PITT politics while residing in Germany, when Europe was divided between France and England; and PHILLPOTTS first wrote violent pamphlets against the Catholic Emancipation and next made warm speeches in favour of it. The SUMNERS come under the head of Courtier Bishops.
The only really excellent point about the Lords Spiritual is, that their seats are but for life ; by some fortunate accident they do not perpetuate their race in the Legislature. The Law, unhappily skilled in the doctrine of entail, has secured a remainder for its progeny. A Chancellor takes care that his name shall not go down to posterity without something to be ashamed of. If the soldiers and sailors, who arc after all the most illustrious branch of the Peerage, were of our mind, they would require that their patent should be terminable with the qualities which won it. The reason is plain—look at the Pension List —honour is expen- sive. Though there are many arguments for a life Peerage in lieu of hereditary honours, none comes more home to the feelings of a generous breast than the sight of the progeny of heroes and orators becoming the helpless creatures of a corrupt or ambitious Minister. The most deserving men are rarely those who accumu- late the greatest fortunes : their own independence saves themselves from being tampered with, but will it save their successors front prostitution ? They leave name and fame and rank behind them, but do they leave bread ? A poor lord is a very pooe thing ; there are great demands made upon him anclvery little to meet them. Here is a prey for an unscrupulous Administration. What will not a titled pauper, with a fashionable wife and a crowd of infant nobility about him—very hungry, and what is worse, very capri- cious and luxurious—do for QUARTER-DAY?
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