he may achieve world-wide fame as an architect, his canvas may glow with the marvellous coloring of Titian or repeat the rare and delicate grace of Correggio, the triumphs of his chisel may reflect honor upon England and his age; the inventive genius of Jones, painfully elaborating, through long and suffering years of obscure poverty, the crude conceptions of his boyhood, may confer inestimable benefits upon his race; the scientific discoveries of Robinson may add incalculable wealth to the resources of his nation:  but let them not dream of any other nobility than that conferred by Nature; let them be content to live and die plain, untitled Brown, Jones, and Robinson, or at best look forward only to the barren honors of knighthood.  Indeed, it is not too much to say that for plebeian merit the only available avenues to the peerage are the Church and the Bar.

The proportion of law lords now in the House of Lords is unusually large,—­there being, besides Lord Westbury, the present Lord-High-Chancellor, no fewer than six Ex-Lord-Chancellors, each enjoying the very satisfactory pension of five thousand pounds per annum.  Lord Lyndhurst still survives at the ripe age of ninety-one; and Lord Brougham, now in his eighty-sixth year, has made good his promise that he would outlive Lord Campbell, and spare his friends the pain of seeing his biography added to the lives of the Lord-Chancellors to whom, in Lord Brougham’s opinion, Lord Campbell had done such inadequate justice.

The course of proceeding in the House of Lords differs considerably from that pursued in the House of Commons.  The Lord-High-Chancellor, seated on the wool-sack,—­a crimson cushion, innocent of any support to the back, and by no means suggestive of comfort, or inviting deliberations of the peers, but is never addressed by the speakers.  “My lords” is the phrase with which every peer commences his remarks.

Another peculiarity patent to the stranger is the small number usually present at the debates.  The average attendance is less than fifty, and often one sees only fifteen or twenty peers in their seats.  Two or three leading members of the Ministry, as many prominent members of the opposition, a bishop or two, a score of deluded, but well-meaning gentlemen, who obstinately adhere to the unfashionable notion, that, where great political powers are enjoyed, there are certain serious duties to the public closely connected therewith, a few prosy and pompous peers who believe that their constant presence is essential to the welfare and prosperity of the kingdom,—­such, I think, is a correct classification of the ordinary attendance of noblemen at the House of Lords.