Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/290

 have not found so great faith, no not in Israel." I could name several members of his order who, for purity of motive, sense of justice, and genuine love of their fellow-men, have no superiors, or perhaps equals, in the ranks of those whose political principles may be said by comparison to bear interest. The aristocracy of England has never been absolutely without some redeeming representatives. If it had been wholly noxious it could not have survived so long. But it was founded in conquest and rapine; and it has all along clung to birth, and not merit, as the chief justification of its existence. The House of Lords is the most extraordinary anachronism in the political world. The idea of a hereditary legislator is even more absurd than that of a hereditary butcher or baker; and, if Englishmen had had any sense of the ludicrous, the peerage would have been laughed, if not kicked, out of existence long ago. Notwithstanding some appearances to the contrary, the baronage of England, Mr. Herbert maintains, and I agree with him, is now as effete as the Sublime Porte. There is but one thing they can now do with advantage,—efface themselves as speedily as possible, and fall into line in the great army of democracy, which, often retarded in its advance, never really turns back; which, "like death, never gives up a victim."

When an aristocrat by birth becomes a democrat by reflection, when a royalist by association becomes a republican by sympathy, the process of conversion can never be without interest. Those of us who, like myself, were at no time any thing if not Radical, are apt to set but too little store by principles which one in Mr. Herbert's position prizes like so much treasure-trove.