Perhaps, however, the one capital force, operating for good upon the British aristocracy, is—­the paramount reference of all accomplishments, of ambition through all its modes, and of party connexions, to the public service.  This, again, which constitutes a fourth head amongst the characteristics of English society, may be viewed as both cause and effect with reference to our civil institutions.  Here we regard it as a cause.  It is a startling assertion to make, but we have good reason to think it true, that, in the last great war with Jacobinism, stretching through very nearly one whole quarter of a century, beyond all doubt the nobility was that order amongst us who shed their blood in the largest proportion for the commonwealth.  Let not the reader believe that for a moment we are capable of undervaluing the pretensions of any class, whether high or low.  All furnished martyrs to that noblest of causes.  And it is not possible that this should be otherwise; because amongst us society is so exquisitely fused, so delicate are the nuances by which our ranks play out and in to each other, that no man can imagine the possibility of an arrest being communicated at any point to the free circulation of any one national feeling whatsoever.  Great chasms must exist between social ranks, where it is possible for a sentiment of nationality to be suddenly frozen up as it approaches one particular class; as a corollary from which doctrine, we have always treated with derision the scurrilous notion that our rural body of landowners, our country squires, could, by possibility, differ essentially from the rest of us.  Bred amongst us, educated amongst us, intermarrying with us indiscriminately, how by any means apparent to common sense should it be possible for them to maintain an inheritance of separate ignorance, separate prejudices, or separate purposes, such as interested manufacturers and trivial satirists assume?  On the same principle, it is not possible that, in questions of elementary patriotism, any palsy should check the electric movement of the national feelings through every organ of its social life—­except only in the one case where its organization is imperfect.  Let there be a haughty nobility, void of popular sympathies, such as the haute noblesse of Russia or Hungary is sometimes said to be, and it will be possible that jealousy on behalf of privileges should operate so noxiously as to place such a body in opposition to the people for the sake of what it holds separately, rather than in sympathy with the people for the sake of what both hold in common.  With us, this is otherwise; the very highest and most feudal amongst our nobles are associated by common rights, interests, and subjection to the laws, with the general body of the people.  Make an exception for the right of demanding an audience from the sovereign, for the right of entree at St James’s, for the right of driving through the Horse Guards, or for