This body possesses several obvious advantages over any other deliberative assembly now existing.  Not the least among these is the fact that the oldest son of every peer is prepared by a careful course of education for political and diplomatic life.  Every peer, except some of recent creation, has from childhood enjoyed all conceivable facilities for acquiring a finished education.  In giving direction to his studies at school and at the university, special reference has been had to his future Parliamentary career.  Nothing that large wealth could supply, or the most powerful family-influence could command, has been spared to give to the future legislator every needed qualification for the grave and responsible duties which he will one day be called to assume.  His ambition has been stimulated by the traditional achievements of a long line of illustrious ancestors, and his pride has been awakened and kept alive by the universal deference paid to his position as the heir apparent or presumptive of a noble house.

This view is so well presented in “The Caxtons,” that I need offer no apology for making an extract from that most able and discriminating picture of English society.  “The fact is, that Lord Castleton had been taught everything that relates to property (a knowledge that embraces very wide circumference).  It had been said to him, ’You will be an immense proprietor:  knowledge is essential to your self-preservation.  You will be puzzled, ridiculed, duped every day of your life, if you do not make yourself acquainted with all by which property is assailed or defended, impoverished or increased.  You have a stake in the country:  you must learn all the interests of Europe, nay, of the civilized world; for these interests react on the country, and the interests of the country are of the greatest possible consequence to the interests of the Marquis of Castleton.’  Thus, the state of the Continent, the policy of Metternich, the condition of the Papacy, the growth of Dissent, the proper mode of dealing with the spirit of democracy which was the epidemic of European monarchies, the relative proportions of the agricultural and manufacturing population, corn-laws, currency, and the laws that regulate wages, a criticism on the leading speakers in the House of Commons, with some discursive observations on the importance of fattening cattle, the introduction of flax into Ireland, emigration, the condition of the poor:  these and such-like stupendous subjects for reflection—­all branching more or less intricately from the single idea of the Castleton property—­the young lord discussed and disposed of in half a dozen prim, poised sentences, evincing, I must say in justice, no inconsiderable information, and a mighty solemn turn of mind.  The oddity was, that the subjects so selected and treated should not come rather from some young barrister, or mature political economist, than from so gorgeous a lily of the field.”