as their attitude towards foreign nations always has been by a singular want of all generosity, still it must be confessed that their steady and unwavering adherence to a line of conduct which has made England feared and her power respected by every country in the world has a certain element of dignity and manly self-reliance which compels our admiration.  And while they have been of late so frequently outwitted by the flexible, if not tortuous, policy of Louis Napoleon, it yet remains to be seen whether the firm and unyielding course of the English Ministry will not in the end prove quite as successful as the more Machiavellian management of the French Emperor.

I hardly know how to describe accurately the impression made upon the mind of an American by his first visit to the House of Lords.  What memories haunt him of the Norman Conquest and the Crusades, of Magna Charta and the King-Maker, of noblemen who suffered with Charles I. and supped with Charles II., and of noblemen still later whose family-pride looked down upon the House of Hanover, and whose banded political power and freely lavished wealth checked the brilliant career of Napoleon, and maintained, the supremacy of England on sea and land!

Enter, then, the House of Lords with these stirring memories, and confess frankly to a feeling of disappointment.  Here are seated a few well-behaved gentlemen of all ages, often carelessly dressed, and almost invariably in English morning-costume.  They are sleepily discussing some uninteresting question, and you are disposed to retire in view of the more powerful attractions of Drury Lane or the Haymarket, or the chance of something better worth hearing in the House of Commons.  Take my advice, and wait until the adjournment.  It will not be long, and by leaving now you may lose an important debate and the sight of some men whose fame is bounded only by the limits of Christendom.  Even now there is a slight stir in the House.  A nobleman has entered whose movements you will do well to follow.  He takes his place just at the left of the Lord-Chancellor, but remains seated only for a moment.  If you are familiar with the pencil of Punch, you will recognize him at a glance.  A thin, wiry, yet muscular frame, a singularly marked and expressive face and mobile features, a nose that defies description, a high cravat like a poultice covered with a black silk bandage, clothes that seem to have been made for a much larger man, and always a pair of old-fashioned checked trousers,—­of course, this can only be Lord Brougham.  He is eighty-five years old, and yet his physical activity would do no injustice to a man in the prime of life.  If you watch him a few moments, you will have abundant evidence of his restless energy.  While we look, he has crossed to the opposite side of the House, and is enjoying a hearty laugh with the Bishop of Oxford.  The round, full face of “Slippery Sam” (as he is disrespectfully called throughout England)