No preacher would in these days speak in his funeral sermon of a woman who was lately "a great and good duchess on earth, and is now a great and good duchess in heaven." Civility, decent civility, in a peer, seems to entitle him, in the eyes of his admirers, to special eulogy. "I have known Lord Sandwich apologize to a lieutenant in the navy for not being able to be exact to his appointment," writes a friend of his lordship. Bishop Warburton is spoken of as beyond measure condescending and courteous, having even graciously handed some biscuits and wine on a salver to a curate who was to read prayers. The position of a peer is no doubt less imposing now, but it is probably more comfortable; state is avoided because it brings no corresponding advantage. Lord Abercorn, travelling in 1813 between Carlisle and Longtown, was preceded by the ladies of his family and his household in five carriages, while he brought up the rear mounted on a small pony, and decorated over his riding-dress with the ribbon and star of the Garter. In this guise he would now be taken for the advance guard of a travelling menagerie. Whitaker speaks of the Earl of Cumberland travelling in 1525, with thirtythree servants and horses, and says that now, viz., 1805, a nobleman of the same rank going alone from Skipton to London would be content with six horses, two postilions, and two outriders. "Modern habits," he adds, "have certainly gained in elegance what they have lost in cumbrous parade." The change between 1805 and 1885 has been even greater than that between 1525 and 1805, and it is difficult to conceive how travelling could be rendered more simple and free from parade. From the days of Haroun Alraschid, the wearers of rank have found in among their chief pleasures to lay it aside, and to observe the manners of their time unnoticed themselves. The facilities for this enjoyment now are far greater. The age, too, is in a hurry; one horse goes quicker than four; life is short, and the actors want to get as much as possible out of it. They want to enjoy the advantages of wealth, of leisure, and of educated taste, as much as ever, but they have less yeneration for form. We give the title of esquire to a costermonger or a chimneysweep, and should much prefer giving the latter the title of marquis, if he desired it, sooner than have our chimneys unswept. A peer in these days may be defined as a country gentle

ble of taking a part personally in contested elections, and who, cæteris paribus, has the first refusal of an heiress and of a court appointment. It is very seldom that he possesses even the moiety of a borough, and if he does, it is only owing to legitimate means, and in no way the result of his peerage.

With the Reform Bill the power of the House of Lords fell, and it is in the pos session of other advantages that its members have now to solace themselves. Any oligarchy enjoys a coveted pre-eminence. The upper house may increase its num. bers, but it cannot increase them in direct ratio with the increase of the population. The eagerness to belong to it does not appear to diminish, and all resigning ministers could tell of a goodly list of applicants for admission to the honor. It is the same with the House of Commons. Its character has changed, its ranks are filled from all classes and trades, men criticise it unfavorably, point to its loss of oratorical power, of decent feeling, of selfrespect and good breeding, but there is never any lack of candidates to supply a vacancy. "O drug," said Robinson Crusoe, on finding some gold in the hold of the wreck, "what art thou good for? I have no manner of use for thee. Ever remain where thou art, and go to the bottom as a creature whose life is not worth saving." He adds, "However, upon second thoughts I took it away." Criticisms have very little influence on the subse quent conduct of those who make them.

Never was there such wealth of invective at the command of man as was owned by Cobbett. Out of the innermost recesses of the English language he drew epithets and utterances that had slept for centuries. We have forgotten these words, if indeed we know their meanings. We are mealy-mouthed and cast about for a periphrasis. When, indeed, we wish to use strong language we are reduced to plagiarisms.

Lord Tennyson, in one of his last poems, speaks of one of his characters as being "that outdacious at home not thaw you went fur to raäke out hell with a small-tooth comb!" a sentiment which you will find applied by a Bristol mechanic during the election of 1812 to his political opponents. The simple Saxon words of reproach used by our ancestors, by Fielding, by Sterne, by Smollett, by Johnson, have fallen into disuse; and, though the moralist has to condemn precisely the same frailties or foibles, he has to do so

in different language. But in the begin ning of the century plain speaking held its own, and Cobbett could find in the language of those who were socially his superiors justification for the nervous terseness of his vituperative pen.

No one swore harder than ex-chancellor Lord Thurlow, or spoke out his thoughts with more clearness; no one, to put it plainly, used more hideous language. (He died cursing his servants.) Sir, your father," he said to George the Fourth, "will continue to be a popular king as long as he continues to go to church every Sunday, and to be faithful to that ugly woman your mother; but you, sir, will never be popular." We have one delight. ful story at a later period about the king's language. He was very angry with Lord Mansfield on account of a speech he had made on the Catholic question. "He lied," said the king "had I been an individual, I would have told him so and fought him. As it was, I put the Archbishop of Canterbury in a fright by sending him as my second to Mansfield to tell him he lied. The archbishop came down bustling here to know what he was to do. 'Go,' said I, 'go and do my biddingtell him he lies, and kick his behind in my name!"" History does not record whether the archbishop carried out his royal master's orders or not. Cobbett understood the value of repetition as well as that of abuse; he hammered at the borough-monger whatever his subject might be "that monster to be moved by nothing but his own pecuniary suffer ings." His "English Grammar," which deserves a permanent place among the best class-books, is made the vehicle of open and covert satire. "Sometimes the hyphen is used to connect many words together, as "the never-to-be-forgotten cruelty of the borough tyrants." "Nouns of number such as mob, Parliament, rabble, House of Commons, regiment, court of King's Bench, den of thieves," is a sentence which defies a criminal information and yet conveys Cobbett's meaning as well as a detailed denunciation.

When a company, consisting of men who have been enabled, by the favor of the late William Pitt, to plunder and insult the people, meet under the name of a Pitt Club to celebrate the birthday of that corrupt and cruel minister, those who publish accounts of their festivities always tell us that such and such toasts were drank, instead of drunk.

More than one hundred thousand copies of this grammar were sold, and it should be treated as its author treated Lowth's

grammar. It was by practising what he preached that Cobbett made his own style so excellent and so simple. You will find no sentences in which you have to search for the nominative, no intricate constructions, no fine and half-intelligible words. Mr. Dickens was so charmed with the style of one of his literary staff that he asked him one day how he had acquired so admirable a manner. "The fact is, Mr. Dickens," the contributor replied, "there are a great many words I don't understand, and a great many I can't spell, so that I am forced to use a simple set of words."

Cobbett's hand was against every man. He hated the prince regent and the ministers, but the Whigs he hated still more. The Edinburgh reviewers were a tribe of coxcombs, a set of the meanest politicians that ever touched pen and paper. He fell foul of one Liberal leader after another. He attacked Romilly and Brougham as he did Castlereagh and Liverpool, Sidmouth and Canning. He had no sympa. thy with the modern school of political economy, and was as keen against forestalling and regrating as Lord Kenyon. His motto was Cobbett's reform by or through Cobbett only: "Follow me, read my books, and you will be happy and successful through life." He had many of the qualities of a great prophet, and when the forces that were arrayed against him are considered, his courage and pertinacity will appear of no mean order.

In wading through the political life of the first quarter of this century, tired of the plots and counterplots, the jealousies and animosities, of which the prince was the centre, it is exhilarating to look at them from an outside standpoint connected with neither of the political factions. The Tories were in power from 1783 to 1830, with the exception of a few months. The Whigs wanted their places, wanted the patronage, but they had no desire to lose their political influence in the country by the loss of the seats they owned. Had they come into office in 1812 no real change in the representation would have occurred. They had no object in common. Lord Grey had declared that reform ought only to be undertaken when it was seriously and affectionately demanded by the people. The Radicals made no difference between Whigs and Tories. In Bentham's eyes they acted under the same corrupt influence and possessed the same separate and sinister interest. Whigs and Tories alike were indebted to proprietorship and terrorism for their

seats. Against Lord Grey and a Whig aristocracy, against Henry Brougham and the Edinburgh Review, Major Cartwright inveighed as bitterly as against the To ries. The Edinburgh Review retorted and attacked "the worst enemies of all reform, who will listen to no dictates of moderation, a class of impostors who showed a disregard of truth and contempt of decency." The country was to be saved by Whig royalists and a large open aristocracy, who were to exercise great caution in dealing with the rotten boroughs.

And loud and upright, till their price be known, They thwart the King's supplies to raise their

own;

But bees on flowers alighting cease their hum, So settling upon places Whigs grow dumb.

They were devoid of all patriotism. They sat and sulked when the news came of an English victory; they refused to believe in the possibility of the success of our arms, and the members of Brooks's would have been delighted to hear that Wellington had been taken prisoner. Wordsworth wrote that he exulted in the triumph of his soul when Englishmen by thousands were overthrown, left without glory on the field or driven to shameful Bight. Napoleon had Byron's best wishes to manure the fields of France with an invading army, and Byron stigmatized the allied armies as the thieves in Paris. They took the Princess of Wales up when they thought that she could be of use to them, and they threw her over when it suited them. They pandered to the wishes of the regent, and they were flung over by him directly he saw that he could do with out them. Any arrangement which would have resulted in the accession to power of Wellesley and Canning, of Lord Moira or Lords Grey and Grenville, was little likely to content Cobbett and his readers. Whatever was dependent on the Prince of Wales's favor, or that had relations with the court, they must have distrusted. The lapse of time fortunately conceals many ugly things, but it has never concealed an uglier thing than George the Fourth. Satire could not wish for a better theme than the prince regent marrying for the payment of his debts, drunk in the grate on his wedding night, taking his wife's bracelets to deck his mistress's arms. With more favorites than Solomon, he imitated that monarch's extravagances in building without possessing his architectural knowledge. The furniture for Carlton House during two years and threequarters cost 160,000l., and vast sums

were thrown away over the pavilion at Brighton and the cottage at Virginia Water. His debts were being continually paid by the country, and on each occasion he concealed some, presenting an incom. plete schedule. His debts were his poli tics, and his own gratification his sole object. Here is a political scene from Carlton House in 1812. When Lord Grey and Lord Grenville had refused to have anything to do with the government after the prince's celebrated letter to the Duke of York, the prince abused them in such terms at dinner that his daughter burst into tears, owing to her distress at her father's language.

The next day, Sunday, upon Lord Moira's calling at Carlton House by the Prince's order, the Prince sent out his page-in-waiting to him, to tell him that he had been so drunk the preceding night he was not well enough to see him, but ordered the page to tell him that he, the Prince, had settled the Catholic question, which was not any longer to form a Govern ment question.

As a son, a husband, a lover, a friend, a debtor, the prince showed much the same qualities. In spite of what he was pleased to call "his irresistible impulse of filial duty and affection to his beloved and afflicted father," he behaved to him in a way, to use Mr. Grenville's words, "to make one's blood run cold." He cheated, and was cheated in turn. George Hanger was one of his friends, and has left behind him some memoirs in which he gives an account of his own debts and troubles and tailors' bills. One winter's dress-clothes alone cost him 900l. A morning suit for a birthday cost 80%., while that for the evening cost about 180/., being the first satin coat that appeared in this country. The prince was a master in the art of dress, and on one occasion, according to Moore, began to cry when Brummell told him he did not like the cut of his coat. Tears were at his command as though he were a child. He cried when Lord Moira left him, and he cried for Mr. Fitzherbert. I have mentioned Colonel Hanger's name, however, that I may introduce the bet of the comparative swiftness of the turkey and the goose, by which the prince was victimized. George Hanger, having settled the question to his own satisfaction, first introduced the subject at dinner, and gave his opinion in favor of the turkey. Others backed the goose, and a match of twenty turkeys against twenty geese was made for a distance of ten miles. The prince backed the turkeys heavily at two to one, and commissioned

In

Hanger to choose twenty of the finest birds he could find. On the day appointed, the prince and his party of turkeys and Mr. Berkeley and his party of geese set off to decide the match. For the first three hours everything seemed to indicate that the turkeys would be the win ners, as they were then two miles in advance of the geese; but as night came on, the turkeys began to stretch out their necks towards the branches of the trees which lined the sides of the road. vain the prince poked at them with a pole to which a bit of red cloth was attached, in vain George Hanger dislodged one from its roosting-place, in vain was barley strewn upon the road. The geese wad dled on in the mean time, and passed the turkey party, who were all busy in the trees dislodging their obstinate birds; all their efforts, however, were to no effect, and the geese were declared the winners. Atque utinam his potius nugis tota illa dedis

set

Tempora sævitiæ !

Charles the Second was not a moral monarch, and his court did not set a very high value on female virtue as far as we know; but it does not lose by comparison with that of the prince regent. Charles made his favorites duchesses. George deserted Mrs. Fitzherbert, and it was his brother William who offered to create her a duchess. Charles knew what war was, what hairbreadth escapes were, and what might be achieved by a few devoted friends against a whole country eager to make him a prisoner. George believed he had been present at Waterloo, and taxed the politeness of the Duke of Wellington, who could only say in reply to his recollections, "I have often heard your Majesty say so.'

Courtier though he was, Sir Walter Scott wrote on the queen's death to Mr. Morritt:

I fear the effect of this event on public manners. Were there but a weight at the back of the drawing-room door, which would slam it in the face of courtesans, its fall ought to be lamented. Honest old Evelyn's account of Charles the Second's Court presses on one's recollection, and prepares the mind for anxious apprehensions.

Apprehensions might well exist and sombre prophecies be made. The rage for appointments, for pensions, for sinecures was perhaps the greater because of the fear that the harvest might only last a short time. Success belonged, as it always does, to the importunate.

"It is a

strange, scrambling world," writes a clergyman, "and there are at least fifty applications for everything that falls, however trifling. I will do my best." Cobbett, of course, inveighed against the clergy, who, with very few exceptions, were staunchly opposed to reform. The value of the loaves and fishes was estimated in those days with a certain crudity, which must have afforded amusement to the mali. cious. One bishop, writing to another in 1805, says:

By a concurrence of fortunate circumstances, you are nominated to a bishopric of revenues have expected. I saw the Archbishop-elect, beyond what you or any of your friends could and he said, "If your friend is my successor, he may be assured that he will find it nearer 4,000l. than 3,500. He is much a man of business and very accurate. An income like this will soon repay the expenses which await you, and enable you after living up to your station to save money. 60l. will pay for your robes, and your first payment of first-fruits will not occur till the end of September. The house is large, and I presume you will have to pay for the furniture there more than you will friend of mine will succeed you at Durham, receive for that at Durham. A very intimate and I can add for your satisfaction that he will be speedily solvent for your furniture."

The appointment, however, was an excellent one, and the new bishop, in spite of all the temptations which were offered to him in the guise of the highest prizes of the Church, remained true to his party, spoke every year almost alone among his colleagues on the bench in the House of Lords on behalf of the Catholics, was abused by one side and lauded by the other, and lived to see the realization of his wishes and to vote for the Reform Bill before he died. Before Mr. Pitt had given away this see, he received a letter from the Bishop of Bristol, thanking him for his intention of conferring it upon him, of which Lord Stanhope says, "There is something worthy of record in the plan of soliciting a favor by returning thanks for it as though already conferred."

Appointments were supposed to enable a man not only to maintain but to found a family; the owner of the governor generalship of India expected to save a sufficient sum in five years to keep up the dignity of the peerage which was offered to him at the close of his tenure of office.

Party feeling ran high, the sense of injustice and of oppression was keen, but I have no intention of endeavoring to make excuses for Cobbett's language, or to deny that it must have had an unfortu