of Oxford. Two days afterwards Lord Stanhope CHA P. brought down a message from the King, that " His

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Majesty has so much at heart the settling the

Peerage of the whole kingdom upon such a "foundation as may secure the freedom and con"stitution of Parliament in all future ages, that he "is willing his prerogative stand not in the way of "so great and necessary a work." Accordingly, on the 3d of March, the Lords, in a committee of the whole House, discussed eleven resolutions, which were proposed as the groundwork of the future bill. By these it was provided, that the English Peers should not be increased beyond six of their present number, with an exception in favour of Princes of the blood; that for every extinction there might be a new creation; that no peerages should hereafter be granted for any longer tenure than to the grantee, and to the heirs male of his body; that instead of the sixteen elective Peers from Scotland, the King should name twenty-five as hereditary from that part of the kingdom; and that this number, on the failure of heirs male, should be supplied from the remaining Scotch Peers.

It is remarkable, that the debate which arose upon this plan seems to have turned exclusively upon the Scotch portion of it. Lord Cowper forcibly argued that "what was intended to be "done with relation to the Scots Peerage was a "manifest violation of the Treaty of Union, and

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CHAP. "the highest piece of injustice; and that the Scots "Peers who should be excluded from the number “of the twenty-five hereditary would be in a worse "condition than any other subject, since they "would be neither representing nor represented." On the other part, it was maintained by the Dukes of Roxburgh and Montrose, "that the settling "the Peerage in the manner proposed was rather "a benefit than a disadvantage to the Scots

peerage, whose representatives were thereby in"creased by nine; and as for those Peers who, for "the present, would be excluded, they would "afterwards have a chance to come in upon failure "of any of the twenty-five." Lord Townshend, the leader of the Whigs in opposition, and Lord Nottingham, who guided a small section of the Tories, both declared that they were not against limiting the Peerage, but only against the doing it in a manner which, in their opinion, was unjust; and in fact, it may be observed, that the Scotch clauses were by no means required for the general object of the bill. On a division, however, the entire resolutions were carried by 83 votes against 30.

A bill on these principles was accordingly brought in, and it passed through most of its stages without further opposition. But a considerable ferment had meanwhile arisen out of doors; and on the 14th of April, the day appointed for the third reading, Stanhope declared, "that this bill had

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"made a great noise and raised strange apprehen- CHA P. "sions; and since the design of it had been so "misrepresented, and so misunderstood that it was likely to meet with great opposition in the other "House, he thought it advisable to let that matter "lie still till a more proper opportunity." The bill was accordingly dropped for that Session, with the declared purpose of reviving it in the next.

During this interval it may well be supposed that neither the friends nor the adversaries of the bill

were idle. An eager war of pens had already
begun. One of the pamphlets against the measure
was written by Walpole; but the palms of this
political controversy were undoubtedly borne away
by Addison on the one side, and by Steele on the
other. Addison supported the bill in a paper
called "The Old Whig;" a powerful argument,
and his last dying effort, for he expired not many
weeks afterwards. He was ably answered by Steele,
under the name of the "Plebeian
Plebeian"; Addison
rejoined; and it is painful to find that these two ac-
complished friends, after such long and cordial
intimacy, should be not merely estranged in senti-
ment, but indulge in personal reflections on each
other. It was the object of the Old Whig to show
that in ancient times no such unlimited prerogative
of creating Peers had been vested in the Crown,
that the abuse of that prerogative in the late reign
called aloud for its limitation, and that the Com-
mons would be more truly independent, and less

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CHA P. liable to corrupt influence, when the Crown could no longer hold out to their chief members a prospect of hereditary honours. On the other hand, the Plebeian proved that the bill tended to establish an unmitigated aristocracy, and pointed out the evils attendant on that form of government. The subject appears of so much constitutional importance, that the reader will perhaps forgive me for offering some thoughts both on the question itself, and on the true principle and object of the Peerage.

Even in very early stages of society, the evils of pure despotism and of pure democracy were severely felt, and found to be nearly akin. The same violent bursts of passion, the same sudden changes of purpose, and the same blind fondness for favourites, which are the vices of a single tyrant, were seen no less to prevail in the assemblies of the sovereign people. When once democracy," says Thucydides, "became unrestrained at Athens, "rival statesmen applied themselves only to please "the multitude, and let go the care of the common"wealth." In absolute monarchies, likewise, men looked rather to the favour of the sovereign than to the service of the state. In both cases, there. fore, was felt the necessity of some check, and in both cases was soon established an assembly of chief men to take some part of the sovereign power, and to give moderation and steadiness to the government.

Hist., lib. ii. c. 65.

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It is remarkable, however, that this institution has CHAP. in different states proceeded on quite opposite principles. In free cities the original intention has been to give increased authority to old age. This idea will be found to run throughout, and the titles Gerontes, Senators, Patricians, Presbyters, Signori, Aldermen, have all the same primitive meaning. In early stages of society, when all men are equally uneducated, age and experience would of course possess much more value than when mental cultivation may sometimes raise a schoolboy of sixteen above a ploughman of sixty.

In conquered countries, on the other hand, the principal followers of the conqueror, dividing the lands amongst themselves or holding military fiefs for life, have commonly formed an assembly as a check upon absolute power. This assembly was composed, not on the principle of seniority or superior wisdom, but on the principle either of military courage or of a large stake in the commonwealth. Such was the case with most of the kingdoms that arose from the ruins of the Roman Empire; such was the case also with the Norman rulers of England.

But though these institutions have sprung from such opposite origins, it is very remarkable that they all have tended to the same result. Though neither the wisdom of age nor courage in the field have ever been thought hereditary qualities, yet the hereditary principle has nearly every where prevailed over the elective. The modes have indeed