APPENDIX 365 



fox in his wiles. As Nature, in all her modifications of 

 life, has a power of increase far beyond what is needed to 

 supply the place of what falls by Time's decay, those in- 

 dividuals who possess not the requisite strength, swift- 

 ness, hardihood, or cunning, fall prematurely without re- 

 producing — either a prey to their natural devourers, or 

 sinking under disease, generally induced by want of 

 nourishment, their place being occupied by the more per- 

 fect of their own kind, who are pressing on the means of 

 subsistence. The law of entail, necessary to hereditary 

 nobility, is an outrage on this law of nature which she 

 will not pass unavenged — a law which has the most de- 

 basing influence upon the energies of a people, and will 

 sooner or later lead to general subversion, more especially 

 when the executive of a country remains for a consider- 

 able time efficient, and no effort is needed on the part 

 of the nobility to protect their own, or no war to draw 

 forth or preserve their powers by exertion. It is all 

 very well, when, in stormy times, the baron has everv 

 faculty trained to its utmost ability in keeping his proud 

 crest aloft. How far hereditary nobility, under effective 

 government, has operated to retard " the march of intel- 

 lect," and deteriorate the species in modern Europe, is 

 an interesting and important question. We have seen it 

 play its part in France ; we see exhibition of its influence 

 throughout the Iberian peninsula, to the utmost degrada- 

 tion of its victims. It has rendered the Italian peninsula, 

 with its islands, a blank in the political map of Europe. 

 Let the panegyrists of hereditary nobility, primogeniture, 

 and entail, say what these countries might not have been 



