ACTUAL VALUE OF ENGLISH NOBILITY. 377 



of abstract rights, and personal claims to merit in individuals, in order 

 to guard against the interruption of the general harmony and enjoyment, 

 by the out-burstings of arrogant, unrefined selfishness ; and is it not 

 likely, then, nay, is it not certain, that the same reason exists, arising 

 out of the same inherent properties of human nature, for establishing a 

 similar system of conventional respect and concession in the grand poli- 

 tical society of a nation ? What an odious character is that man in 

 private life, who is nice and fastidious in his estimate of the intrinsic 

 worth of those into whose company he is thrown ! How completely, in 

 a small party, where only one conversation can be held at a time, and all 

 are concerned in it, does the presence of such a wretch mar the enjoy- 

 ment of an evening ! How often cannot one help lamenting, that the 

 wariness of such an individual prevents his committing some overt act 

 of inhumanity and uncharitableness, to justify one's pitching him neck 

 and crop out of the nearest window, if with a pond under it, so much 

 the better ! Entire radicals as we are, and bent upon treading hard upon 

 the aristocratic toe, whenever we find it out of its own proper shoe, we 

 feel the same sort of disgust we have just expressed, at those of our 

 political party who deny the claims of nobility to any degree of respect, 

 beyond the exact sum due to their intrinsic moral and intellectual worth. 

 We deem this over scrupulousness inhuman and uncharitable, and based 

 upon an assumption which no candid and modest man would wish to 

 admit for his own sake, namely, that men are able to decide with exact 

 justice upon each- other's merits, and warranted in withholding all con- 

 sideration from such as they do not think quite deserving. 



The objection of danger to the greatest good of the greatest number, 

 from admitting a large body of men into classes of distinction, inasmuch 

 as the objection is founded on humanity, is one which we respect, and 

 which, if we could not quite satisfy ourselves of its invalidity, would 

 entirely change our opinion. 



Some years back, we admit, the aspect of our political world was so 

 unpromising, and the evil of aristocracy so great, and so apparently 

 irremediable, that no slight penetration was required to discern any good 

 in nobility at all. We ourselves, in the course of our political educa- 

 tion, remained for some time on that stage of inquiry, where the ques- 

 tion to be got rid of was Whether, those of office excepted, any other 

 distinctions are advisable in political society, than such as property, and 

 talent, and virtue may gain for themselves ? We proceeded onward 

 from that stage, with a conviction, that the institution of nobility is to 

 be maintained ; and subsequent years have confirmed this conviction. 

 In some articles, in late numbers of the Monthly, on the Depreciation 

 of the English Nobility, the running purport of the argument we 

 maintained tends directly to disprove the objection of danger from 

 hereditary distinctions. We refer our readers to those articles, for what 

 we deem conclusive evidence of the impotency of nobility to maintain 

 much longer any greater consequence than the people of England may 

 be inclined to award it. We will only here add, that if noblemen 

 should persevere in annoying us only a little longer, our friends of the 

 newspaper press could soon quiet them, for good and all, by triennial 

 parliaments with the ballot, or with a much more extended suffrage. We 

 never fully appreciated the merits of our constitution, till the Reform 

 Bill made them manifest. We are now quite sure, that it contains within 

 it the means of coring all evil, and ensuring all good. We now perceive 



