TIT BITS. No. I. Stolen from “The Queen’s Messenger”? THE FATE OF THE PEERS; . OK', . _ > _ • A FEW WORDS WITH OUR OLD NOBILITY. BY THE Author of “LOVE, LAW, AND THEOLOGY.” Illustrated with Timothy Tinted s .celebrated Cartoon of the Marquis of Boot - , fa&V/ ' proceeding to kiss the Folds Toe . . C A M E RON AND F E R G U S O N, LONDON: 12 A VS MARIA I.ANE. GLASGOW: 88 to 94 'VEST NILE STREET. 1869. $ 1 L ♦ i COTCH£0 AT ROME STOLEN FROM “THE QUEEN’S MESSENGER”? THE FATE OF THE PEERS; m OR, A FEW WORDS WITH OUR OLD NOBILITY. BY THE AUTHOR OF “ LOVE, LAW, AND THEOLOGY.” Illustrated with Timothy Tinter’s celebrated Cartoon of the Marquis of Boot proceeding to kiss the Pope's Toe. CAMERON AND FERGUSON, LONDON: 12 AYE MARIA LANE. GLASGOW : 88 to 94 WEST NILE STREET. 1 8 G 9. 31 1 PREFATORY NOTE. Stolen from 44 The Queen’s Messenger”? We do not own the delicate impeachment, but those who are curious to know more, are referred to 44 Love, Law, and Theology: an Ecclesiastico- Legal Romance,” published by Messrs. Cameron & Ferguson, 12 Ave Maria Lane, London; illus- trated with characteristic sketches by Timothy Tinter, A.O.N.A., in which they will find some things even more startling than 44 A Few Words with Our Old Nobility ” London, 21th July , 1869. A FEW WORDS WITH OUR OLD NOBILITY. Dans les families il ne faut plus chercher les mceurs de Rome mats celles de Constantinople f says a French writer, in referring to the corruption of the aristocracy under the Roman Empire. How far are we from a state of things which would justify us in saying, that among “our old nobility” we no longer look for the manners of old England, but for those, if not of Constantinople, at least of the Continent ? It is said that we are touching upon the days of the Regency. Perhaps so; but they will be worse days for England than ever were thosejof the Regency. The corruption of those times was happily arrested by the reign of a wise and virtuous Queen ; but, since even her example is fast losing hold upon our nobility, where are we to look for a barrier against the tide of dissoluteness and Popery which is making around us, and which will attain its flood when * “ Among the patricians were no longer found the manners of Rome, but those of Constantinople .” — Ortolan Histoire de la legislation Romaine , Tome I., p. 355. 6 A FEW WOEDS WITH OUE NOBILITY. she ceases to rule, even if it does not do so before? We have given the French horse racing and a Commercial Treaty. They have helped us to the Demi-Monde and the Mode of the Madeleine and Notre Dame. Young England has at length succeeded in introducing to Rottenrow les petites foldtres, who were formerly content to fan their carmined cheeks in Burlington Arcade. He must needs familiarize his mother and sisters with the liaisons of Mabel Grey, and imitate the manners and morals of the Bois and Longchamps, in the Park and at Epsom. But haven’t we put down prize " fighting ? Alack-a-day! the “ noble art and science” of Jackson, Cribb, and Sayers is doomed to die, with our old nobility, and to succumb to the Turf. Alas ! for our modern Corinthians, it is now but one step from the Ring to the cell ; from the Race course to the Court of Bankruptcy. Manners and manors are changing fast in old England. Hastings are peas that sprout early, and are plucked when green. A week or two now suffice to strip our youth of ancestral Paddocks, and to enrich the sneaking foot-pads of the Turf. Yet, Tattersall’s lives, while the Ring is doomed! O temporal O mores! No more are we to witness the ropes and stakes. i- . A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. 7 with their anxious umpire, judicious bottleholders, and smiling pugs. . . . . “ Nee quisquam ex agmine tanto Audet adire virum manibusque inducere caestus.”*' It is no longer question of the manners of England, but of the Continent. Mademoiselle Schneider has driven out our Pynes and our Faucits. French operas possess our theatres, and Popish ceremonials our churches. The no- bility seem to be as ripe for a change of religion as for a change of manners or dress. It is not difficult, in the gilded salons of Paris, to persuade cette belle dame Anglaise , that the gossamer fabrics- of Mechlin or Valenciennes, which rehaussent the charms of the beautiful blonde, have their natural atmosphere in a temple where gauzy wreaths of sensuous incense float dreamily over a glittering altar and glimmering tapers. If we are not touching upon the days of the Regency, we are at least approaching those of James I., when the Prince de Vaudemont, on looking upon that festival of St. Michael in the Chapel Royal, at which honest Andrew Melville was compelled to assist, naively remarked — “I do not see what * “ Neither any one out of so great a body dares to en- counter an opponent, nor to put on the caestus.” — Viry. Aen.y 5. 379. 8 A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. should hinder the Churches of Rome and England to unite and yet, what caused Melville to write his celebrated lines on that occasion was simply the fact that, in addition to the decorations of the chapel, there were on the altar two shut books, two empty cups, and two unlighted candles. “ Cur stant clausi Anglis libri duo regia in ara, Lamina caeca duo, pollubra sicca duo ? Num sensum cultumque Dei tenet Anglia clausum, Lumine caeca suo, sorde sepulta sua ? Romano an ritu dum regalem instruit aram Purpuream pingit religiosa lupam ?”* What would De Yaudemont say, or Melville write, could they but see some of the services in the Chapel of the Rev. Mr. Purchas at Brighton ? AVe say the coming days will be worse than the Avorst days of the Regency. There are great changes impending over England. Her aristoc- racy have been neglecting both their duties and their opportunities, and have suffered themselves to be put in a false position by a mere adventurer. That will be the verdict of posterity. They are * The following old metrical translation of Melville’s lines gives a very fair idea of the original : — “ Why stand there in the Royal altar hie, Two closed books, blind lights, two basins drie ? Doth England hold God’s mind and worship closs, Blind of her sight, and buried in her dross ? Doth she, with chapel put in Romish dress, The purple whore religiously express ?” A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. 9 now doing their best to set themselves finally against the people. Why, what are they doing ? In the face of the will of the nation, clearly and emphatically expressed, they would fain force upon the Irish people what has well been called the incestuous union of Church and State. They would perpetuate the church of the rich few, upon the soil of the poor many. Whoever governs you, it has been said, his religion shall be yours ! Cujus regio ejas religio. This is what the English aristocracy wish to maintain, but it is precisely that which the nation will not submit to. What a spectacle ! Behold the grasp of the miser upon his money bags ! Rather than part with their spoil the Lords Spiritual and Temporal will endow Popery! The Tories were Jacobites in the good old times of the First George. Are they Protestants now? They are so only in name. Like that virtuous Queen who was tempted by Mazarin, they have their price. “ Si Von vous offrait oune millions ? ” said the wily Cardinal, smiling, through his broken French. “ Quelle horreur!” “ Quatre milliones “ Quelle infamie!” “ Deux cents milliones ?” 2 10 A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. “Ah! voas Trim direz tantV ’* Give the Lords their amendments, and they will, Bishops and all, swallow the wafer! What care the nobles for the National Church % Indeed, they are gradually leaving it for that of a foreign hierarch. It is a fact always to be deplored when the nobility of a country deserts the National Church ; but it depends upon the Church itself whether it is a fact to be deplored for the Church or for the nobility. Provided the Church of Eng- land can retain the affection and regard of the people, she may mourn, but she need not despair on account of the perversion of the aristocracy; for she will certainly survive them. Arts and science, law and learning, may die, since Lord J ohn Manners has given them permission so to do, but while it is only justice to say that they have been all more or less indebted to the old nobility, it is in vain to hope that they will not survive the destruction of their patrons. How or when this destruction will take place we need not discuss here. As it is, according to Sir Bernard * u If I were offering you one million ?” “ What an outrage ! ” u Four millions? ” “ Infamous !” “ Two hundred millions ? ” “ Ah ! will you say so much ? ” A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. 11 Burke, the representatives of some of the oldest English families are now to be found in the very humblest grades of life ; but we may at least say that it will take place some considerable time anterior to the completion, by the New Zealand artist, of his famous sketch of the ruins of St. Paul’s. Long before then, if we can trust to prophets as sagacious as Macaulay, the old nobility will have become a thing of the past, after having succeeded in alienating itself from the affections of the people, and having duly earned the reward of popular contempt, not simply from its mad opposition to the national will, but by its unblushing patron- age of the indecent twistings and turnings of fat and fluffy trulls from the Opera Comique , by its admiration of La Belle Helene, La Perichole, and La Grande Ducliesse de Gerolstein — its love of rowdyism in the streets — blackguardism in the casinos — scandal in the saloons of Rachel, and trickery on the turf, and, silliest and most fatal trick of all, by allowing itself to be slily towed into Rome, after having made shipwreck of its honour, its virtue, and its religion, fastened to a priestly cable, one end being held by a leery friar, and the other being attached to a somewhat long and hopelessly stupid snout. And now, moved by an imploring and wailing 12 A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. cry of distress which we hear even afar off from thy crowded lanes and streets, 0 , mighty London ! let 11s address a few words of warning and entreaty to yon, the great aristocracy of England ; and, in saying England, let ns be understood as meaning Scotland and Ireland as well. It is con- venient to nse it so, bnt, to satisfy onr conscience, we do it tinder protest. We would have preferred that the words of warning came from a monitor with more chance of being heard, and, when heard, more likely to be listened to than onrselves. We daresay there are not a few who would feel it to be a duty to tell yon the trnth as they themselves perceive it; bnt, on the other hand, there are many who are too much disposed to mix that trnth with flattery. Honied words and honied medi- cine may be good for children — they are not good for men. Some people are afraid to tell things as they really are — we are not afraid. We happen to belong to a race — Of caterans and robbers, did yon say ? Thank yon. W e admit it. They were caterans and robbers. Many of yonr ancestors, it is said, were robbers too. Bnt what have the sons of these caterans done for yon, the nobility of England? They saved yonr honour and the fame of the British name at Fontenoy, and A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. 13 plucked a laurel from the brow of Saxe. For you they stormed the heights of Abraham, and quenched in blood the pride of Montcalm, and to you and to the rest of Europe they first taught that the Tnvincibles of Menou were not invincible at Alexandria. With one foot on the beach, and the other almost in the sea, they drove back the legions of Soult from the ridges of Corunna, and cheered the dying Moore, as they bore him in their plaids from the bloody strife, with the hope that, in saving his ragged and starving soldiers he had preserved the honour and glory of England. They stopped at Quatre Bras the headlong rush of Ney, and were among those who conquered his master at Waterloo, and what they did then they are able, though not perhaps so willing now, to do again ; for the heights of Alma, the “ thin red line” of Balaclava, and the march on Lucknow, prove that the men of Campbell are still the men “ Of Wolf and Abercromby, And Moore, and Wellington.’' We say then, that we are of a race who fear not man, but God. We have nothing to fear, and but little to hope from man, and we — we have seen him in all his degrees and phases, from kings and nobles to the murderer in his cell — on the 14 A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. scaffold, or chained as a convict at the back of the south wind — if it has a back. We have seen him carried dead or wounded from the field of battle, or buried in the depths of the ocean. We have seen sons of the nobility of England, and of the nobility of France, and of other nobilities, priests, barristers, doctors, soldiers, sailors, states- men, men of all countries, colours, and creeds, all jumbled together, striving more or less to earn their bread, as Adam did, by the sweat of their brow. We have been in the houses of the rich and in the wigwam of the savage ; but while we have little to hope from man, we have a great deal to hope for him; and it is because we have that hope, and because we believe that it is the chief duty of man here to leave, if he can, this world wiser and better than he found it, and so to be really a fellow-worker with his Creator ; it is because we believe this, that we venture to address a few words of warning, and some words of entreaty, to you the old nobility of England. It is not necessary, before you take advantage of the storm signal, that you should be particular as to who it was who hoisted the drum. We ask you then, this question — “ Is it, or is it not true, that in England, the rich are getting richer and richer, more selfish and A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. 15 more dissolute, while the poor are getting poorer and poorer?” We don’t want you to answer that question now. We will give you time to do it. It requires time, and we hope you will give it consideration; but you may at least answer it thus far, by admitting that poverty, pauperism, and crime, are fearfully on the increase in the land of your forefathers. Now, you may not unnaturally say, “ Why do you appeal to us? We are rich and powerful, no doubt, but the mercantile and trading classes are many of them richer than we.” We answer, that we are not appealing to you merely for alms. We have appealed to you, as much as anything else, on your own account. We don’t wish to see our aristocracy destroyed. We are of those who think that it is good for England to have an aristocracy. The mercantile classes, though rich, are like the poor in this, that they are always with us. An aristocracy may be destroyed, but it cannot be created in a day, at least such an aristocracy as we used to believe we had in England. It is good for England to have an aristocracy — a chivalrous, a virtuous, a home- loving, and home-abiding aristocracy — -just as it is good for her to have a national Church — a church following and enjoining the simple religion 16 A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. of the Bible— and as it will be good for her, and well for you, if she have a Protestant Church, and not a Ritualistic or a Romish Church; but it would be better far for England to have no aris- tocracy and no national Church, than to have them corrupt, degraded, and alienated from the people. How then, stands the case with you? It is said that you obtained your vast possessions, or a great part of them, by rapine and fraud, and that you are holding them in trust, for the gratification of selfish, sensual, and private ends, instead of for your own and the nation’s welfare ; that you have weaned the people from you, and wish to regard them as the Roman Senators did the Plebs ; that you are destroying their morality by the premium which your vitiated tastes hold out to indecency and sensationalism on the stage, and to mummery and superstition in the church. It is said that while men are starving in East London and elsewhere in England, you are rolling about and lolling in carriages, emblazoned with armorial bearings, showing that some of you came here with the Conqueror, and that you are proud of that, and of your light to bear arms, proving that your ancestors succeeded very well in trimming the beard or polishing the boots of the great Bastard and his successors, or in cutting the A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. 17 throats of unfortunate Saxons, who were unreason- able enough to think that you could have done this trimming and brushing well enough in Normandy. Well, what we would say to all that is this — that so far as origin is concerned, you are neither better nor worse than the aristocracies of other countries, and that, should men again return to a primitive state, the same process would begin again. The old rule would immediately be put into practice, quod nullius est Jit occupantis. It would, however, happen just as it happened before, that the strongest and most crafty — a preference being generally secured by the latter • — would seize not only what was not occupied by anybody else, but all the occupied territory he could get hold of by conquest or chicane, and divide it among himself and his followers. Your ancestors — and our ancestors, although the latter didn’t happen to be allowed to keep all that they possessed before Harlaw, or before they con- tracted the evil habit of burning churches, or we mightn’t perhaps now be writing these lines — we say, your ancestors invested all the available means they had to invest, to wit, strong, brawny arms, and, perhaps, more than ordinary resolute wills and active brains, in the way most likely to 15 A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. yield them a good return; and on the battle-field or in the court they were rewarded by grants of land, and other grants and honours, for a life of danger, toil, and oftentimes of disease. Some were rewarded for victories won in the field of intellect, and some for meanness and complais- ance not necessary to be mentioned. It was a fair enough investment of capital, and, perhaps, the only one that would have paid at the time. We do not dispute the return you received for it, and at this present time we do not know that anybody professes to question it, although there are certain people who do draw unfavourable inferences from that verse of the Proverbs which says — “ An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning, but the end thereof shall not be blessed.” On the other hand, some ingenious logician might say, and perhaps Mr. Disraeli may yet have to say it, that even granting the ugly premises taken up by your opponents, you possess your rights upon as good a title as the merchant has to the wealth which he has acquired in com- merce of a different kind; and, indeed, if the secrets of the counting-house parlour, of the private letter-books, and private ledgers of the great merchants of the world, and their motives and acts, could be laid as bare as the deeds of A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. 19 your ancestors, we don’t say what legitimate inferences might be made from such evidence as that. But all this is over and away from the point which we have to consider now. There are some rights which are imprescriptible, but there is such a doctrine as prescription, for which, having been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, we have, upon the whole, a wholesome respect, although we don’t carry it to the extent to which some people urge it ; but to this, at least, it would seem to be sufficient for you, that it validates titles, many of which, although not such as we think the best that might have been got when they were obtained, were certainly as good as most of those which were then considered to be so, and which, more- over, have had their irregularities sopited by time, if they were not all consecrated by morality. But while thus recognising your rights of pro- perty, your status, and your honours, the further, and far more important question remains — What use are you making of them now ? This question may perhaps be considered an impertinence. We don’t think it is. At least it is not intended to be so. We are of those who hold that as you obtained privileges at the expense of the nation, the nation has the right to see that 20 A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. you make a proper use of them. Your remote ancestors and some of their descendants may have continued their claims to possession of their rights by the sword — it maybe by the pen, although the sword was the holding upon which they were given, and by which they were to be retained ; but it never was intended merely to endow a race of drones — of simple annuitants in perpetuity — to erect a class distinct from, and having no sympa- thies or feelings in common with the mass of the people; yet a class living on the property, and battening on the resources of the nation. The class having been created, certain duties and responsibilities were created along with it. Are you fulfilling these duties now ? People ask whether it is enough in the present day, when all other classes of this great empire are obliged to strive with might and main to live, that you should merely live for yourselves — in ease, in idleness, in a round of giddy pleasures, in an eddy of fashionable dissipation — regardless of the wretchedness, the poverty, and crime which are welling up before and around you. They refuse to admit that you discharge your duty when you toddle down to the House of Lords, mumble there for an hour, and adjourn. Can you help the people asking themselves whether it is right that sheep, A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. 21 deer, horses, dogs, partridges, pheasants, and grouse, gamekeepers, flunkeys, and footmen, should be laid up in ordinary, or, as some people say, in lavender, while hundreds of men are starving on pallets — pallets not always even of straw ? Can you help them making reflections upon you for spending your money, and losing your reputation and fame on Schneiders — at the gaming tables of Baden or Homburg — fighting with cockers de place on the streets, or betting on the race course ? Or, when you get sickened and emasculated by these things, will it be unreasonable for the peo- ple to refuse to believe that you have fulfilled your duties to your fellow-men, or that you are making your peace with God by patronising candles and vestments, and being led away over to Rome ? You believe that there was a flood before the death of Noah! Have you forgotten that there was also a deluge after Mirabeau? The polished Marquis Scaramouche and La Belle Marquise Sacristine did, each of them in their way, all those pretty little things then. They, too, began to outgrow their civilization. They also delighted in the Schneiders, and in the nude ballet girls and muscular dancers of those days; and they read and appreciated, we have no doubt, books 22 A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. similar to those which yon seem to enjoy now — such as that worse than concentration of the indecencies of Boccaccio, Les Contes de la Fontaine — Les Aventures du Chevalier de Faublas , Les Memoires de Jacques Casanova de Seingalt , and Les Liaisons D anger euses ; and they had nice little chapels to worship in, and dapper little Abbes to flirt with, and wiry little Jesuits to confess to, and to show them the way, when it was ripe for it, to a nunnery or a convent. But there were nasty lettres de cachet and seignorial rights, you say, which weighed heavily on the people of France in those days. We know all that, and the less you say about some of these things the better; but what we would ask you about now is this, what good came of all the little elegances of which we have been speaking, of all the selfish- ness, of all the gaiety, of all that dissoluteness and devoutness, for they seem to go pretty often together? Did they stop the deluge or did they hasten it? We don’t ask you to answer these questions at present; but at least think of them. We have enjoyed a reign of unexampled peace and prosperity under Queen Victoria, surnamed The Good, and whom may God long preserve to reign over us ; but in the nature of things that A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. 23 reign can only last for a limited time. We do not know that we have any reason to suppose that that of her successor, whoever he or she may be, will be as happy, as virtuous, and as great. We don’t say that it will not, but it is at least unusual in the life of nations to be blessed with so great a boon, and the time may not be far off when it may be well for the monarchy of England to be supported by a good, a patriotic, and a virtuous aristocracy. Should that time be to- morrow, are you prepared for it? Or are you making any preparations? You are not, perhaps, aware of the extent to which what are called republican ideas are react- ing upon these islands from America, Australia and New Zealand. If not, you might do worse than take a trip to America, and visit our Colonies. The expense would be less and the pleasure more than in visiting the salons of Paris or the spielhaus of Baden. But whether you will go to America or to Australia and New Zealand, or not, or whether you will choose rather to go to the Continent, and to put on the cast-off papal rags of the Italians, Austrians, and Spaniards, be assured at least of this, that there is a current flowing from America and our Colonies as steady, ay, and as warm even as the Gulf Stream itself, and that it 24 A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. is washing away the foundations upon which you have chosen to build your house. You don’t see it, nor do you hear it? We believe that. It makes no noise, but it is moving for all that. The tide makes no noise, but still it rises. You don’t see it rise if you only drive along the Thames embankment. Well, what of all that? What of it, do you say? Why, this — you have the power now to direct the course of that stream : to direct it for good. It is not necessary that England should become a republic. We do not think it desirable that she should. We would rather not see her a republic. Do you wish to make her so ? The people wanted you to settle the question of labour and the basis of national education. You chose, instead, to give them a Reform Bill. It might have been better, both for you and them, had you only given them what they asked ; but since you have given them a Reform Bill without first- giving them education, or seeing that they were placed in harmonious relations with their employers — two things not so very difficult to have done had you been earnest in trying to accomplish them — since, we say, you have given them this Reform Bill, and you must now give them the ballot, what are you going to do with yourselves? It was the A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. 25 boast of your leader that he had spent years on your education. Is it finished ? If so, what are the fruits of his teaching? Above all, what has his teaching profited you ? Did he tell you your real position, or does he really know it himself? Or has he been mixing syrup with the draught which he said it was good for you to swallow ? We don’t know, and, perhaps, you don’t know yourselves, and although we have asked you the questions, we don’t want you to answer them; and you wouldn’t, probably, answer them if you eould. But what we will ask you, and what the nation asks you, and expects you to answer, is this — Will you or will you not, educated for it or uneducated, fulfil the work you were intended to do, and which you are bound to perform in this country of Eng- land ? Can you safely neglect it ? Who would seriously have thought thirty or forty years ago that so venerable and important an institution as the Irish Church would be struck down, and its Tevenues be appropriated, as we hope they will be, to secular purposes ? Who would have dreamed of seriously pro- posing, although the nation was languishing for want of intellectual food, and is one of the least educated countries in Europe, that the revenues 26 A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. of Oxford should be confiscated for the most holy- purpose of educating the people? Will it be deemed, think you, any very monstrous thing some forty or fifty years hence, or, for aught we know, sooner, to say that it is an unnatural and unjust thing that the people should be starving — elbowing one another over the cliffs of old England in a struggle for bread, while one man appropriates a whole county in walks for sheep and forests for deer? And if that man, besides, should happen to be living merely for himself and for his retinue of servants, dogs, horses, and carriages, and, even in the absence of anything worse, is only to be found taking an active interest in private chapels, blazing in the noon-tide of day with the light of candles, with the perfume of incense, and the glitter of vest- ments — do you think that a discontented people will require much rhetoric or logic to persuade them that an institution productive only of such results should follow the fate of the Irish Church, the revenues of Oxford, and, it may be, the Church of England itself? Listen! The men of East London — the brave manly sons of England, are starving for lack of bread. There’s no work for them to do, or they wouldn’t be starving. Nature’s nobility is dying A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. 27 for want of sustenance. Have you no sympathy with it? It was from the ranks of those men that many of your fathers were chosen to he senators. Yea, even from that very class whom you are said to despise. Think you that they are ignoble? Do you think that they will be less noble than you when they go to that world where there is no old nobility — where there is no distinction of race or caste ? Do you believe that when Christ makes up his jewels he will do what you even don’t do on earth — that he will choose his gems all of one colour, of one water, and from one stone ? You are not bound to support them nor to find them work? We didn’t say you were bound by human laws to do it, although we are sorely tempted to say it. They die quietly, you tell us. They don’t disturb you. It is only we who are saying disagreeable things. You want to be let alone, as you are preparing to go to Lady Greatjoy’s ball. It is inconvenient. We are intruding. Are you mocking ? Do you know what is said in the Book of Holy Writ — “ Whoso mocketh the poor, reproacheth his Maker: and he that is glad at calamities, shall not be unpunished?” Yes; they die ! These brave English hearts know how 28 A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. to die ! We have seen them die in foreign lands ; but not of starvation, thank God ! No, that is left for them to endure at home! They know how to die, those Englishmen ; and knowing that they must, they make no fuss about it. But at least they would die more mercifully if they could die quicker ; and know, while dying, that their deaths would save the lives of their wives and little ones. Listen again ! Have you heard of that noble band of soldiers who formed line on the deck of the Birkenhead , and, saluting their officers, with their eyes fronting the boats which contained their wives and children, went down out of sight for ever ? They, too, were Englishmen, and they knew how to die, and were ready to go, for their eyes had seen the salvation of widows and orphans, whom they once used to call wives and children ! They died very quietly, too. Theirs were thoughts too deep for tears, and their looks didn’t need an interpreter. They made no noise. The only noise was the horrid swish and swirl of the waves when the sinking ship went down; but that noise — even that, was after the soldiers were gone ! But the death of these brave men was quick, and it was also merciful; for they knew that their deaths had purchased the lives of A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. 29 those whom they held dearest on earth — dearer even than themselves ! Would you have saved those men if you could ? Yes, you would have tried to save them. And why would you have tried to do it ? Is it because they were soldiers and were drawn up in line, and it is pretty to see soldiers in line, and it would be a pity to see them die so in the wide ocean, on board of a sinking transport ? Ah! Noblesse of England! there are men now in London, just as brave, just as helpless, sinking in as vast a gulf as those did who sank with the Birkenhead l They are not in line, and they do not die quickly ; and alas ! they know that their deaths will not redeem the lives of their wives and children ! Will you not help them? Merciful God! is there no Lord Peabody among the serried ranks of England’s nobility, who will rise and save those starving men ? Do you not blush to think that a simple citizen of that great and good nation — yes, great and good — the people of America, whom, it is said you scorned, reviled, and insulted, and would fain have destroyed — do you not blush, we ask, to think that this simple goad man — this true Samaritan, should be doing the duty so A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. incumbent upon you, of saving your poor from the jaws of famine ? What a satire upon vengeance! People of America! your triumph is complete! Do not, we beseech you, let it be said of you, the descendants of England’s chivalry and worth — “ There is a generation whose teeth are as swords and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.” Do not be deceived by the smooth- ness and calm which seem to be existing around you. They were piping and dancing, marrying and giving in marriage before the flood. We are now in the midst of an atmosphere which, though still, is as oppressively charged Avith sulphureous elements as the most threatening thunder cloud. We are in the midst of plenty, though we are, alas ! also in the midst of want. If troubles come and come they Avill sooner or later, it will be w T ell for you to see around you a happy, a moral, and a contented people. It would be better, too, perhaps, had you those around you — the thousands of that brave and devoted race, Avhom, for the sake of sheep and deer, you caused, most wrong- fully to be deported from the homes of their fathers. Even now, perhaps, the curse of that foul system has begun to cast its shadoAvs before, A FEW WORDS WITH OUR NOBILITY. 31 by the very finding of gold in the lonely valleys of Sutherland ! Who can unfold the mystery of retribution? Come, however, it will, in some form, and at some time or other. “National discontent,” says a writer, whom it is not fashionable to read, “ seldom originates in trivial matters, nor is it easy to excite a people against an established government, even in cases of flagrant misrule, unless their natural attach- ment have been previously alienated by continued oppression or neglect . Revolutions, however sudden in appearance, are not in common the effects of sudden impulse — the immediate visible agents may be trifling, the shock unexpected, instan- taneous, and universal, but there must have been in silent operation, a number of unnoticed, unheeded causes, which, in fact, produce them.” * What has been destruction to dynasties and governments must, in the nature of things, be fatal also to you. You may succeed in demoralizing and Romanizing classes — you will never succeed in doing so with the nation. If the disgust of an old woman to an obnoxious prayer-book gave shape and form to a revolution in Scotland, no man can tell how insignificant may be the instru- ment which may ring the knell of your power * AikmaiTs History of Scotland. Vol. IV., p. 1. 32 LAST WORDS. and influence, should you at length arouse the indignation and scorn of the people of England. We shall plead no more. It has been our lot to plead, oftener than once, for those whose poverty compelled them to sue in forma 'pauperis . We hope we have done it now for the last time. We have pleaded for the brave strong man, ema- ciated by want, and a prey to disease — for his tearless wife — for even the well of her tears is dry — for their famished, starving little ones. And we have also pleaded for and with you, 0 Nobility of England ! W e leave you now to your conscience and your God. But, in doing so, we would ask you again — Is it, or is it not true, that in England the rich are becoming richer and richer, more selfish and more dissolute; the poor, poorer and poorer? and we dare not utter it. Vieille Noblesse — * Beware ! GLASGOW : DUNN AND WRIGHT, PRINTERS. . SECQisrx> rxxoxjsA.]sru. f ft k- r?r- — * Just Published Crown Octavo, Extra Cloth , Bevelled Boefirds, pp. 608, III at rated, Price 7/6. LOVE, LAW, AND THEOLOGY: AN ECCLESIASTIOO-LEGAL ROMANCE. By ALEXANDER MACDONALD, AUTHOR OF “ V. »i» J"HK ZOUAVES ,VNB THU FHK> 'H FOREIGN 'LEGION,” “ HANDY ROOK OF THE LAW RBLATIVK TO MASTER . V/ ■■r.XMEN, ETC." 1 Mit| Jiftcfn Cjrrartetuiir pnsttatiims mx Copper, By TIMOTHY TINTER, A.O.N.A. “A very appropriate study j.fc the present time .” — Earl of Stair, Holyrood Palace. " This is substantially a good as it is a clever book. The Author’s style is always clear and vigorous ; sometimes eloquent, never dull. 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