But everybody knows that Lord
Brougham is a type of those statesmen who stand by the people in the
Commons and grind the people in the Lords; who, after crying down public
wrongs, upon finding the responsibility of a coronet on their shoulders,
suddenly become arrant sticklers for hereditary rights. We are amused to
notice, among those peers who have risen above the selfishness by which
they are surrounded, and have given us a well-timed sympathy, but few
who are of new creations: for the Duke of Argyle and the Earls of
Carlisle and Clarendon are descendants of the oldest and proudest houses
in the realm.
It is gratifying to observe that those forces which are operating
against us are those which are rapidly losing that control in public
affairs which belonged to past phases of society; while those forces
which are proper to the present, and are inevitably to assume the
preponderance in the future, appear as they develop to be more and more
sympathetic with the cause of our national integrity. Aristocratic
prestige is shrinking back before an advancing enlightenment which
elevates all to equal dignity.
Pages:
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340