528] 
honourable. birth, their power 
would be hugatory, their. insignia 
ridiculous. Luxury, that bane to 
national prosperity, by causing the 
extinction of old families, incurably 
Vitiates, to a certain degree, the 
constitution cf the house of lords. 
A new-created peer will never be 
respected as much as one who de- 
tives his honours from a long line 
of ancestors. This evil would not, 
however, be very considerable, if 
the vacancies were supplied as they 
ought to be; but of late years, in- 
stead of selecting those commoners 
who are most distinguished by their 
family and fortune, peerages have 
been lavished on professional men, 
often of the most obscure birth, 
and who sometimes have not even 
attained an independence, but are 
compelled still to follow their pro- 
fessions, or trust to places and pen- 
sions for a maintenance, ‘This 
practice partly arises from the 
indolence and effeminate frivo- 
lity of those who are born to opu- 
lence, and who desert the service 
of the public, or at least consider 
it as subordirate to their pleasures 
and amusements; they therefore 
not only have no cJaims to any re- 
compense from. government, but, 
from the degradation of their per- 
sonal characier, are of little im. 
portance in the eye of the mini- 
ster. It procceds, however, still 
more from the necessity the mini- 
ster lies uncer, oi attaching to him- 
self as many men of professional 
eminence as possible, who, know- 
ing their own importance, make 
their own terms; and also of se- 
curing a devoted majority in the 
‘upper as wel! as in the lower house, 
* It behoves all parties at pre- 
sept to recolleét themselves. Pow- 
er, such as is vested in an English 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1796. 
peer, can safely be entrusted only 
to one who is altogether indepen- 
dent of the smiles of the prince, or 
the minister, as to his fortune; and 
it the house of lords is, as it always 
has been esteemed, the firmest sup- 
port to royalty, and a necessary 
refuge to the constitution against 
the fickleness and viclence of the 
people, it is the interest both of the 
people and of the crown to unite, 
as formerly, political power ‘and 
honorary splendour to hereditary 
opulence apd personal authority. 
Whatever may be his abilities and 
merits, however splendid his ser. 
vices, a new man {xovns homo), 
particularly if he has his fortune to 
make, is not competent to fulfil all 
that is required of a peer.” 
‘Then, criticising the famous pas- 
sage in Goldsmith, 
**\Princes and peers may flourish 
or may fade, 
A breath can make them,’ as a 
breath has made ; : 
But a bold peasantry, their coun- 
try’s pride, 
When once destroy’d, can never 
be supplied :” 
he says—The sentiment is false, for 
it would be still more difficult to 
re-establish a peerage than a pea- 
santry ; and he is certainly right, 
if it be truc that hereditary nobles 
are useful inasmuch as they are 
venerated by the public, and that 
antiquity of descent is one of the 
causes, if not the principal one, of the 
veneration in which they are held 
by the people. He then proceeds 
to shew that, notwithstanding the 
many additions mude to the list. 
of peers, the power of the aristo- 
cracy is rather on the wane, and 
that 
