1831.] Europe, and the British Parliament. 249 



nothing to the public respect for his station, but quite the contrary, and 

 being merely a mass of enormous salaries to noble lords, and other per- 

 sons who are in reality only the ministerial trainbands, the cousins of 

 this minister and the dependants of that, we see no possible reason why 

 their salaries should not be extinguished. They may be very convenient 

 for nominal peers, but actual paupers, who are content to eat the bread 

 of dependence, and walk about the halls of St. James's with white rods 

 in their hands, and liveries on their backs. But the nation see those 

 things with measureless disgust, and ask how it is possible that any man 

 leading this utterly useless life, this mere mummery, can consider him- 

 self performing the part of an English gentleman, while he does this 

 empty duty for hire ? But, that English noblemen possessed of property, 

 and entitled to feel that they have a name to support among the gentle- 

 men of this country, should stoop to the acceptance of money for this 

 nonsense and puerility is altogether astonishing. What can we think of 

 a Duke of Devonshire, with his immense estates and high rank, taking 

 his 3,000 a year, for walking from one room to another, before the 

 king, with a gold key, or some such foolery, at his button-hole ? Let 

 him so walk, if he likes ; but let him disdain to accept money for an 

 employment which costs no trouble, and which to a man of honourable 

 feelings should be amply repaid by the honour of the royal presence. 

 Or what can justify a nobleman of the Duke of Buckingham's rank and 

 fortune, in receiving another 3,000 for sitting in a coach in a red coat 

 twice a year, and following the king's coach from Westminster to St. 

 James's ? The nation asks, how can such things be ? How can those 

 noblemen, who look upon themselves as the elect of the earth, a race of 

 beings altogether superior to the common breathers upon the surface of 

 the world, yet come to the treasury-desk, with the quarterly regularity 

 of a Chelsea pensioner, and put their hire in their pockets as if they 

 were not masters of another shilling in the world ? The fact is, that the 

 " household" in its present state, however it may be stocked with lofty 

 names, is nothing more than a most obnoxious branch of the Pension List, 

 a mere retaining fee for a ministerial menial ; not an appointment for 

 royal attendance, but an expedient to pay men, whom not even the prover- 

 bial daring of ministers would dare to put into public office of any active 

 kind, and who, if they were put into such office would inevitably and 

 immediately betray their unfitness for any thing but the receipt of their 

 salaries. We say then, that the household, as now constituted, deserves 

 to draw the national eyes to its abuses ; and unless the splendour of a 

 court is to be sustained by the degradation of the nobility, the comfort 

 of the monarch ensured by surrounding him with a group of " walk- 

 ing gentlemen ;" or the national respect to be enhanced by compelling 

 every man of honour and delicacy to ask, how can those men be beggarly 

 enough to receive salaries which they cannot want, for duties, which are 

 either nonentities, or which they are not adequate to perform ; the king's 

 dignity and the national feeling would both be best consulted by sending 

 those noble menials adrift, and cutting off from the national incumbran- 

 ces one, alike heavy and ridiculous. 



The Budget was introduced on Friday the llth of February, and 

 is much more satisfactory than the other ministerial measures. 



Its first head relates to the reduction of places, which amount to 

 two hundred and seventy-three : 



M.M. New Series. VOL. XI. No. 03. 2 K 



