1831.] Affairs in General. 197 



enjoy even his 1,500 a-year, he had better lay down his title. And, in 

 Diet, all the nobility of France are thus perishing as fast as they can. It 

 happens, oddly enough, that no nobility of Europe have so few children 

 as the French; a second child being no common instance in the higher 

 ranks ; and thus, by the interdict of nature, the evil of the law may be 

 restrained for a while. But the evil will finally overcome. Even now, 

 all the residences of the nobles in the country are falling into ruin. The 

 proprietors are too poor to live in them, or to repair them, and they fall. 

 In another generation this subdivision will go on, and still proceed until 

 every acre is cut into fragments for younger children ; and France, with 

 increasing multitudes, will shew but a great mob, a nation of paupers ; 

 and of course discontented with all order, and mad for change. 



But the disturbance is not likely to wait even for this. The French 

 themselves tell us that Paris teems with disaffection, -which marshals 

 itself under five different banners. The old royalist, the old jacobin, 

 the Buonapartist, the idealist, the polytechnic and school party. It is 

 true, that out of this multitude of parties may proceed the security of 

 government; which would doubtless be more endangered by one strong 

 coalition. Still, here is the material of mischief to any extent, and there 

 is nothing in the character of France to resist the mischief in any shape 

 that it may assume. There is no peerage of any weight whatever, there 

 is no established religion, and there is no force at the direct command of 

 government for it would be a burlesque to call the present French king 

 the master of any thing, either military or civil ; his dominion is during 

 pleasure, and his kingdom is the Palais Royal. 



Lawyers are famed for making good bargains for themselves. Old 

 Lord Nor bury a year or two since, worn out in office, contrived to make 

 the most of his remaining years after 80 ! by bargaining for a huge re- 

 tiring allowance and an earldom, he having obtained a peerage before 

 for his wife, which descended to his second son ; thus having obtained in 

 fact two peerages for his family. We now have another Irish lawyer 

 contriving to escape from the labours of office on nearly the same terms. 

 O'Grady, the Irish Chief Baron gets a viscounty and barony on his re- 

 tirement, an honour rarely conferred on an individual in similar, circum- 

 stances. He is to be Viscount Cahirguillimore and Baron Rockbarton. 

 The first will be as great a puzzler to the Herald's College to pronounce 

 as was that of Lord Skelmersdale, who, on his elevation to that title, was 

 said to have absolved his godfathers of the original name given him of 

 Bootle Wilbraham. The barbarian name of Cahirguillimore, if he have 

 been foolish enough to take it, may also absolve Mr. O'Grady of some of 

 the merit of his bargain. Yet the public have a right to ask, for what 

 eminent public services is this lawyer to have a viscounty and barony, 

 and a pension of 3,500 a-year besides ? he having already received 

 about 150,000 ! He was probably well acquainted with his profession ; 

 and if he were, he was paid for his knowledge by a huge salary of 

 6,000 a-year (besides other emoluments) ; which any other man at the 

 bar would have considered an equivalent for all his law and labours. 

 Why then heap on him the supernumerary reward of the peerage, 

 which, we must observe, not merely gives the man himself an. undue 

 elevation, but lifts up his descendants, who may not have the slightest 

 of his merits, and who certainly are not likely to render any professional 

 service ? The point is, what could have made it necessary to prompt l^y 



