supervision of dangerous trades, processes, or occupations, with intellectual interests bearing on the deficiencies of the poor, or the possible improvement of the more educated, with this or cognate subjects before them, who that knows the value of sound and impartial parliamentary debate must not be content that there is still a House of Lords?

It is here that their independence of local politics and private interests, their long familiarity with country life, their intimate knowledge of what the labouring classes really like or dislike, fear or hope, their habits of magisterial practice, their own long experience of the obligations of Members of Parliament, combined with their present freedom of judgment and irresponsibility of action, and many other reasons which will suggest themselves to the thoughtful observer, afford them a special aptitude for the work that is before them. To this may be added the constant presence of the men most learned in the Law, ready to detect fallacies, eager to criticise vague generalities, and glad to exercise their knowledge for the public good, without any of that stint of their time which barristers in the House of Commons must in a great degree regard as stolen from their professional practice, and as an interference with their duties to their families and themselves. There is another component of this body on which I cannot look with the same unqualified approval. I allude to the parliamentary, diplomatic, and official veterans, who, but for this opportunity of prolonging their public existence under conditions of less physical labour, would be enjoying the repose of private life; and who by bringing the old authority of their names to bear on novel questions, frequently increase the difficulties of the present by combinations with the problems of the past. There seems no doubt that the last years of the Duke of Wellington were most disastrous to the organization of the British army.

Nevertheless, this tribunal so constituted is an admirable instrument for the functions of legislation that do not require the stimulus of immediate popular excitement. There seems, indeed, to have been an instinct of this fact in that curious revival of the Young England of thirty years ago-the New Social Movement. The story of this attempted league has not been told with sufficient distinctness to authorize any

censure of its motives, though we may smile at its disproportion of means to ends; but it has left clear evidence that a considerable proportion of the worthiest and most earnest of the skilled artisans of this country believe both in the goodwill and in the power of leading members in the House of Lords to analyze and, more or less, to remedy some of the more painful conditions of their social existence. They have certainly two palpable advantages over the philanthropists in the House of Commons. They have more time and more freedom from the personal entanglements which damage so much charitable effort; to this must be added-pace Mr. Miall—the comparative toleration for religious differences in matters of public duty and beneficence, of which the rejection of the Prison Ministers Bill of last session was so painful an example.

But it may very fairly be asked, If the House of Lords presents all this admirable legislative machinery, why let it rust in chronic inactivity, only interrupted by the spasmodic action of party differences? Now this is the very question I desire to put to Her Majesty's Government. Of course they may reply, that though the House of Lords is good, the House of Commons is better, and that it has all the leisure and opportunities required for the purpose. But, unfortunately, the members of the Government have exhausted themselves in apologies for leaving so much undone, and have pleaded that there were obstacles of time and space that even their abilities could not surmount, and which prevented them from making three nations happy. Mr. Bruce's constituents may call out to him from the depths of the earth, and protest against the continuance of colliery accidents; Mr. Bass and Sir W. Lawson may complain, each from his point of view, that just enough has been done by the production of the Licensing Bill to worry everybody and settle nothing; Mr. Goschen may lament that he has started a great scheme of local taxation without the opportunity of expounding its principles or of testing its applicability; Mr. Stansfield may promise us all sorts of sanatory ameliorations, with the chance that every one of them may stifled in the slough of Irish Education. the Scotch members, who generally manage to carry everything that they care about by their good sense and spirit of compromise, even they may speak of themselves as being reduced to a

be

Even

condition of Hibernian helplessness. And yet the House of Lords, which asks nothing better than to give its ample time and recognised talents to these clamorous public exigencies, is compelled to remain an impatient and helpless spectator, and submit to be told that it ought to be absorbed or abolished because it has got nothing to do.

It might indeed seem not impracticable for some independent peers of weight and position to take some such matters in hand without reference to the Government of the day; and this was evidently the hope and intention of the parties who originated the New Social Movement. There is, however, very great difficulty in any such individual action, from the command which the Public Offices possess over the latest statistics and sources of information. Yet I do not say that such an enterprise might not succeed, and I should be very willing to see my political friends subjected to the experiment. If Lord Kinnaird, for instance, were prepared with a Metalliferous Mines Bill at the opening of Parliament, and could secure for himself such a support from both sides of the House as would outnumber the pledged official Government supporters, he would either carry his Bill or compel Her Majesty's Ministers to substitute one of their own.

There are other deep benefits to the House of Lords and the public service, that would follow the regular supply to the Upper House of interesting and important business. It would disabuse the popular mind of the pernicious notion that its functions were simply obstructive, and that it prevented the will of the House of Commons from becoming law for some mysterious object of its own. The custom of daily and thorough work would diminish, if not remedy, the only practical defect of the House of Lords in the conduct of debate. I allude to a certain habit of hurry, and a feeling that, if a particular clique of men of business are satisfied with the progress of a measure, the interference of other peers, although known to be familiar with the subject, is considered obtrusive and unnecessary. The tone of conversation in the House of Lords is essentially that of good society; and as every English gentleman is naturally reticent, it is difficult to get him to contribute his share where the atmosphere is one of discouragement or even of im

patience. Not admitting Goethe's apothegm* that a man has a right to be obtrusive if he only thoroughly understands his subject, English society admits no amount of knowledge as an excuse for dulness and garrulity, and in fact never looks on a man as an entire bore so much as when he is thoroughly well-informed. A more close and habitual contact with the common interests of the people on the part of the House of Lords may, too, have some indirect effect upon what we all feel to be the only serious dangers that threaten it—namely, either some act of hindrance and hostility, which personally affects, it may be, a small body of the people, but which enables any individual to point to a particular peer, and say, "That man, to whom I have done no injury, inflicts, as far as in him lies, a serious wound on the legitimate happiness of my daily life;"-or the still more perilous collective action which should refuse to confirm the strongly expressed desire, not only of a majority of the House of Commons, but of the sober second-thought of the people. The treatment of the Bill for the Marriage of a Deceased Wife's Sister is an example of the first; the rejection of a well-considered measure to secure a more free, real, and moral representation of the people, would be an illustration of the last.

In the first case, the individual peer would be giving to his own judgment of right and wrong a weight which the Constitution never intended him to possess. He is not invested with his vote to determine whether I, in my free opinion, should do or abstain from doing any act socially wise or unwise, prudent or imprudent, in relation to the domestic circle in which I live. Lord Penzance stated this order of objection as strongly as the late Mr. Henry Drummond could have done, who reproached a member with "not going in like a man and marrying his grandmother;" but,-added the experienced judge,-"Is this a basis for legislation?" Assuredly not; and if this opposition to the repeated decision of the House of Commons be allowed to continue, the agitation will

* Which I have somewhere seen thus versified"As in this world's eternal chorus Some voices must be high, some low,Let those who like it bawl and bore us, But in the things they really know."

increase to an extent quite out of proportion to the number of persons primarily interested, each of whom will become, whether he likes it or no, a focus of democratic excitement against a branch of the Legislature which is using its corporate power for the maintenance of individual crotchets and personal prejudices.

As to the obstinate resistance of the House of Lords on any question of the arrangement or balance of the powers of the Constitution, or any extension of the liberties of the people, I entertain no serious fear; but at the same time I cannot help casting forward my mind to the possible condition of things which may, at some not distant date, impose upon them certain duties of risk and defence which involve their very existence as a constituent power. The line of conduct for them to pursue under such circumstances seems to be traced out with the utmost clearness, it must lead either to substantive victory or to honourable dissolution. The simple precept to keep in mind is for them never to come into conflict with a casual majority of the House of Commons, except where it is clear that there is in the nation an earnest passive power and strong will of resistance on the same side as themselves. Hitherto the greater political self-control, which we, as a people, have exhibited, has been rewarded by a freedom from revolutionary extravagance which no other European nation has enjoyed. But there are indications of coming trouble which it would be unwise to neglect, even while we may find legitimate sources of comfort in our opponents' inconsistencies and difficulties of action. The Church of England is the object of simultaneous attack from three different quarters from Ultramontane Catholicism, from Communistic Atheism, and from jealous Nonconformity. The Irish outworks are as good as given up to the first; the second have philosophical allies in many quarters who conceal their co-operations; and if the third avail themselves of any good opportunity to join their forces with those somewhat heterogenous allies, the temperate and tolerant spirit of the Christianity of the Church of England may find itself in considerable straits. "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon" may seem a strange ally for the muskets that ended in shooting down the Archbishop of Paris; but in such a cause as the destruction of the Church of England, and the

House of Lords into the bargain, we may live to see Mr. Miall and Mr. Bradlaugh directing the aggressive forces under the benediction of Archbishop Manning. If there remain in the heart of the people of this country sufficient love of free thought to resist fanaticism, from whatever side it may come, the conquest may not be easy. What may come from disruption within the Church of England itself is quite another question.

If, again, the collision were to occur on the suhject of any right of property, especially in land, it is satisfactory to perceive no monopoly or privilege that attaches itself to the House of Lords, and which is not common to the whole proprietary of the kingdom. The slight distinction which exists in the devolution of realty and personalty must soon be abolished, and landed property continually loses more and more of its peculiarity as an investment. The wealth, too, of the body is every day more and more dispersed in diverse channels. and the disqualification of a peer for bankruptcy implies something more than a point of honour. Should, therefore, anything so disastrous as a revolutionary conflict between Poverty and Wealth loom in the distance, the House of Lords will only enter into it as a portion of the propertied classes, and in no way as an object of special envy, obloquy, or aversion.

Now, these, and all other advantages which accrue from the commixture and infusion of the peerage with other orders of society in this country, are derived from its hereditary character. With us aristocracy has never been a caste; there has never been a notion of any loss of right or dignity by mésalliance; the nobleman raises the woman of his choice to his own rank, whatever be her antecedents and their offspring, without regard to her previous position. Inter-marriages are frequent not only with the gentry but with the professional and commercial classes. All barriers against any honest employment are broken down; a cadet of the loftiest lineage is too thankful to get into a fair City business; and if there be any pretensious vulgarity connected with the order, it will not be found in the elder branches. I am not sure that the occasional poverty of the peerage has not its good side as well as the wealth; it at once lessens the distinction and increases the interest. There is no longer anything more

expected of a lord than of any one else in the intercommunication of daily life, at least if he has the courage to assert an independent position, and, if anything, he can maintain the demeanour of a gentleman ("for honour peereth in the meanest habit") more easily than others under disadvantageous circumstances.

These facts should be kept in mind when the promotion of men of great desert or special ability to the peerage is in question.* It is difficult fully to explain the small amount of authority over public opinion which a Second Chamber, composed almost exclusively of notabilities and men of experience, has ever acquir

ed.

Whether there is something repugnant to the public vanity in an assemblage of men each presenting himself as an important unit and therefore demanding submission as a collective authority, or whether the worth of the individual is more severely scrutinised and his abilities more closely tested, or whether his independence of opinion is more difficult to secure, it is certain that all Second Chambers in Europe so constituted have failed to command public respect. But this is no reason why a hereditary Chamber should not be from time to time recruited with every form of social and intellectual eminence. Not, indeed, that much is to be always expected from the individual thus elevated; he rarely feels himself completely at home, though he impregnates the generally assembly with something of his own faculty and distinction: Lord Lytton has not spoken in the House of Lords since his appearance there, and, as far as I know, has taken no part in its business. Mr. Dodson, Chairman of Committees in the House of Commons, has expressed in print his surprise that so many eminent lawyers being there met together should have done so little for the digest or codification of the Law. It is the fact that, whether from inability to unite their intellectual forces, or to subordinate their diversity of judgments to one special view, there is very little hope of anything valuable being effected in that direction. But all this is no reason why men of great ability, information, or experience, should not from time

* That is to say, there is no longer the same necessity for limiting new Peerages to men of wealth, and what Lady Charlotte Lindsay, Lord North's clever daughter, called "the new order not of 'Barons' but of 'Barrens.' 339

to time, be added to the House of Lords, though not in such numbers as to prejudice its constitution. At the present moment, when, owing to the direction of the public mind, aided by the pressure of certain distressing events, sanitary subjects are likely to be prominent, the accession of one or two eminent medical practitioners or men versed in the application of physical science would assuredly not be unwelcome.

*

It must not be supposed that the House of Lords has not been conscious of its own defects in matters of procedure. A committee on the subject of a Revision of the Standing Orders was lately moved for by Lord Stanhope (who somehow or other always manages to accomplish some object about which other people are talking), but with little other result than the virtual abolition of Proxies, by throwing so many formalities in their way as to make the practice henceforth almost impossible. The very desirable object of meeting at four instead of at five, whieh would have given three good hours of debate before dinner, was thwarted by the judicial arrangements of the Court of Appeal, which so often detain the Lord Chancellor till late in the afternoon. It may assuredly be a question whether the permanent business of a branch of the Legislature should necessarily be subordinated to the convenience of a court of justice, and it might be suggested that there exists in the Chairman of Committees an officer perfectly competent to take the seat on the woolsack on all occasions of ordinary business. If any such Revision comes again under discussion, the question of the number of peers necessary to constitute a House can hardly be avoided; for it is surely an encouragement to absence, even of official personages, that three should represent something like five hundred; at the same time there would be no use in putting gentlemen to the trouble of going down to Westminster for the transaction of formal business, if the main evil of permanent inactivity is to continue.

I have now only to apologize to the editor and readers of this highly Liberal Periodical for the intrusion of an Article so eminently Conservative. But there may be some excuse in its

very extravagance. I admit of no possible organic Reform of the House of Lords. I fully acknowledge the Jesuit precept, Sint ut sunt aut non sint-if they are to be dealt with at all, it can only be by Revolution.

At the same time I cast a serious responsibility on the Government, if they persist in refusing to the House of Lords its legitimate share in the transaction of public business, and believe that they can keep up its character by occasionally foisting into it a clever man who finds himself there with nothing to do. If

neither the Licensing Bill, nor the Truck Bill, nor the Mines Bill, nor any of the sanitary measures emanating from the Poor Law Board, are referred to them at the beginning of the coming Session, a grave suspicion will inevitably arise that it is the studied intent of our present rulers to damage and depreciate an Institution which I earnestly believe the mass of the people regard with traditional affection, not less for the intrinsic worth than for the inherent limitations of its powers.

OUR LIVING POETS, an Essay in Criticism, by H. Buxton Forman. London: Tinsley Brothers.

W. Story, Mrs. Webster, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Gabriela Rossetti, Coventry Patmore, Thomas Woolner, William Bell Scott, Matthew Arnold, Swinburne, Morris, R. H. Horne, Henry Taylor, and George Eliot. The first three are classified as the Idyllic school, the next three as the Psychological school, the five following as the Prerhaphaelite group, the last six as the Renaissance group; but this classification which, even as explained in the introduction, appears to us to rest in no very solid basis, goes practically for very little in the criticisms. Mr. Forman is evidently a most profound, as well as a most devoted student of poetry and we have derived much instruction as well as much pleasure from his teaching, especially with regard to the less known of the poets to whom he accords the honour of a place in his selection. Everything in the volume bespeaks adequate preparation for the critic's task, and conscientious care in performing it. The writer is thoroughly cultivated, though a remark or a phrase which he takes for a grammatical blunder in Mrs. Webster, but which is, in fact, a well known Grecism, leads us to suspect that he has not the great advantage, as to any one treating of artistic form it must be, of reading the Greek models in the original. His sympathies both æsthetic and

the of a heavy hammer, some

pieces are left even for them to pick up. The poetic merits of Swinburne are fully recognized, and the fullest latitude of thought and expression on moral and religious subjects which reason and decency can concede is claimed for him, while justice is done, in words of great weight and dignity, on his gratuitous offences against rules observed by all right-minded men. Mr. Forman's personal leaning, however, is decidedly to the Psychological school, of which Browning is the unquestioned chief. Those who are not partizans of the Psychological school, who prefer something more "simple and sensuous," who think that the domain of mental science and that of poetry should be kept distinct, who in reading poetry look for high enjoyment not for hard intellectual effort, who resent metaphysical obscurity as a defect from which all really deep thinkers, including the greatest poets, are free, will not unfrequently rebel against Mr. Forman's judgments. They will think that there is something cliquish and almost pedantic in his demand of admiration for the "lark-like singing" of "Sordello," a poem which is utter darkness to men who have thoroughly mastered Eschylus and Dante, which is utter darkness, if a current anecdote has any foundation, to Tennyson. They will note his omission to explain why it is, if Browning is the