therefore with no unreasonable confidence of victory, that the measure was proposed.

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On the 28th of February the Duke of Somerset, the first Protestant Peer, called the attention of the House of Lords to this subject, and gave the first idea of the intended Bill. He was seconded by the Duke of Argyle, and opposed by the Earl of Oxford. Two days afterwards Lord Stanhope brought down a Message from the King, that "His Majesty had so much at heart the settling the Peerage of the whole kingdom upon such a "foundation as may secure the freedom and constitution "of Parliament in all future ages, that he is willing his "prerogative stand not in the way of so great and ne-cessary 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 Scottish. Peers.

It is remarkable, that the debate which arose upon this plan seems to have turned exclusively upon the Scottish portion of it. Lord Cowper forcibly argued that "what was intended to be done with relation to the Scot"tish Peerage was a manifest violation of the Treaty of "Union, and the highest piece of injustice; and that the "Scottish Peers who should be excluded from the num"ber 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 Scottish Peerage, whose representatives were

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"thereby increased by nine; and as for those Peers who, "for the present, would be excluded, they would after"wards 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 Scottish 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 made a great noise and raised strange ap"prehensions; 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.

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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; " Addison rejoined; and it is painful to find that these two accomplished friends, after such long and cordial intimacy, should not only be estranged in sentiment, 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 Commons would be more truly independent, and less 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.

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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 com"monwealth."* In absolute monarchies, likewise, men looked rather to the favour of the sovereign than to the service of the state. In both cases, therefore, 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.

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It is remarkable, however, that this institution has 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.

* Hist. lib. ii. c. 65.

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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 been very various. In many cases where the hereditary principle was not established by law, it has been adopted in practice. In many others it was favoured by the law of allowing the Senators to fill up their vacancies by officers (and such were the Roman Censors*) of their own body. Sometimes a right of primogeniture has been acknowledged, sometimes there has been an equal enjoyment but a perpetual inalienability of the family estates. In England the elder son is usually expected to marry, in Venice it was the younger.† These, however, are only different means to a common end hereditary transmission of power.

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the

The reason why this should be is apparent even from

* "Les sénats républicains constitués avec la pensée toujours domi"nante de la perpétuité, ont en général été autorisés à se recruter eux-mêmes, tantôt par un scrutin entre tous les membres, tantôt par "l'élection de quelques officiers tirés de leurs corps, tels que les Censeurs." (Sismondi, de l'Elément Aristocratique.) Without plunging into that difficult and much debated subject, the admission into the Roman Senate, it is, however, quite certain, that the heads of the ancient families in every generation, always became members of that assembly.

"On a remarqué que rarement les Venitiens élevaient à la dig"nité ducale un homme ayant encore sa femme. De là, l'usage "de ne marier ordinairement que les cadets dans les grandes maisons." (Daru, Hist. de Venise, ch. xxxix. vol. vii. p. 267.)

so slight a sketch as I have given. If a Senate be intended as a check on Kings or on multitudes, it follows that to have all its members appointed either by the prerogative of the King or by the election of the multitude, is to recur to that very power which it was wished to control. It is to change the operation but not to diminish the force of a single or a many-headed tyranny. Thus therefore he who desires to see an Upper House chosen by the people or appointed by the Crown for life, seems to me utterly to mistake the true origin and object of the institution itself.

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Of the practical value of this hereditary principle there was never, perhaps, a higher testimony nor a more striking illustration than that which was given, in his later days, by one of the great masters over mankind. "I have heard Napoleon," says M. de Sismondi, "observe during the Hundred Days, that government might be compared to sailing. It is necessary to have two ele"ments before your ship can sail. You must, in like manner, have two elements before you can direct the "vessel of the State, so that you may have a stay in the one against the other. You can never direct a balloon, "because floating as it does in a single element you have 66 no POINT D'APPUI to withstand the storms which agitate "that element. Thus also there can be no POINT D'APPUI, "no possibility of direction, in pure democracy; but when "combined with aristocracy, you may work the one ele"ment against the other, and steer the vessel by their "different powers.

Inheritance is therefore a fundamental and necessary principle of the Peerage. But it has, I conceive, another principle not less fundamental, that this assembly should always be recruited by the most eminent warriors, statesmen, and lawyers of every age. It is this constant influx that keeps the current clear, and prevents it from degenerating. into a torpid and stagnant pool. Without such accessions, I do not hesitate to say that

* See a masterly essay by M. de Sismondi, "Du Prince dans les "Pays Libres," published in the Revue Mens. d'Econ. Polit. October, 1834. I have also read with great pleasure and instruction his Essay sur l'Elément Aristocratique, in the same periodical, July and August, 1835. (These Essays and some others have since been published in a collective form. 1852.)