man, and governing him by personal right. Sixthly, because aristocracy has a tendency to degenerate the human species. By the universal economy of nature it is known, and by the instance of the Jews it is proved, that the human species has a tendency to degenerate, in any small number of persons, when separated from the general stock of society, and intermarrying constantly with each other. It defeats even its pretended end, and becomes in time the opposite of what is noble in man...................... ....The greatest characters the world has known, have arisen on the democratic floor. Aristocracy has not been able to keep a proportionate pace with democracy. The artificial noble shrinks into a dwarf before the noble of nature; and in the few instances of those (for there are some in all countries) in whom nature, as by a miracle, has survived in aristocracy, those men despise it.-Paine.

If a house of legislation is to be composed of men of one class, for the purpose of protecting a distinct interest, all the other interests should have the same. The inequality, as well as the burden of taxation, arises from admitting it in one case, and not in all. Had there been a house of farmers, there had been no game laws; or a house of merchants and manufacturers, the taxes had neither been so unequal nor so excessive. It is from this power of taxation being in the hands of those who can throw so great a part of it from their own shoulders, that it has raged without a check.

Men of small or moderate estates, are more injured by the taxes being thrown on articles of consumption, than they are eased by warding it from landed property, for the following reasons:—

First, they consume more of the productive taxable articles, in proportion to their property, than those of large

estates.

Secondly, their residence is chiefly in towns, and their property in houses; and the increase of the poor-rates, occasioned by taxes on consumption, is in much greater proportion than the land-tax has been favoured. În Birmingham, the poor-rates are not less than seven shillings in the pound. From this, as is already observed, the aristocracy are in a great measure exempt.

These are but a part of the mischiefs flowing from the wretched scheme of a house of peers.

As a combination, it can always throw a considerable portion of taxes from itself; and as an hereditary house, accountable to nobody, it resembles a rotten borough, whose consent is to be courted by interest. There are but few of its members, who are not in some mode or other participators or disposers of the public money. One turns a candle-holder, or a lord in waiting; another a lord of the bed-chamber, a groom of the stole, or any insignificant nominal office to which a salary is annexed, paid out of the public taxes, and which avoids the direct appearance of corruption. Such situations are derogatory to the character of man; and where they can be submitted to, honour cannot reside.

To all these are to be added the numerous dependants, the long list of younger branches and distant relations, who are to be provided for at the public expense; in short, were an estimation to be made of the charge of aristocracy to a nation, it would be found nearly equal to that of surporting the poor.-Ibid.

Noble birth implies only a peerage in the family. Ancestors are by no means necessary for this kind of birth: the patent is the midwife, and the very first descent is noble. Birth, singly, and without an epithet, extends, I cannot possibly say how far, but negatively it stops where useful arts and industry begin. Merchants, tradesmen, yeomen, farmers, and ploughmen, are not born, or at least, in so mean a way as not to deserve that name; and it is, perhaps, for that reason, their mothers are said to be delivered, rather than brought to bed, of them. But baronets, knights, and squires, have the honour of being born.— World.

There are a set of men in all the states of Europe, who assume from their infancy a pre-eminence, independent of their moral character. The attention paid them from the moment of their birth, gives them the idea that they are formed for command; they soon learn to distinguish themselves as a distinct species, and being secure of a certain rank and station, take no pains to make themselves worthy of it. To this institution we owe so many indifferent ministers, ignorant magistrates, and bad generals.-Abbe Raynal.

A peer, sitting in judgment, is not required to give his verdict upon oath, like a commoner, but upon his

honour. What a stigma on the other classes of the community! Just as if a peer alone had honour, and all others were base perfidious slaves, from whom truth could only be extorted when they had been forced into the presence of their Creator.

A member of the lower house is the deputy or representative of others, and cannot delegate his powers; but a peer represents only himself, and may vote by proxy on any question, even though he has never been present to discuss its merits.

If a thief break into a church, and steal the surplice or cushion, it is not like stealing a ledger or cash-box from a shop or counting-house-it is sacrilege. If a man scandalize a peer, by speaking evil of him, it is not common scandal, it is scandalum magnatum, that is, great scandal, subjecting the offender to indefinite punishment.

If a peer jobs in the funds, as many of them do; or if he gets up bubble-companies, as some of them have done, to dupe credulous people; and if he involve himself in debt by these fraudulent practices, you cannot imprison him to enforce payment; neither can you make him a bankrupt, and sequestrate his estates. The property of a peer, like his person, has a dignity about it, and must not be violated. You may knock down Nathan Rothschild, though he is a very rich man, or a worshipful alderman, or even a right honourable lord mayor, and the justices will only charge you a few shillings for the liberty you have taken; but, if you knock down a peer, though he is ever so insolent, it is almost as bad as murder.

Peers being great landowners, therefore land, as well as their persons, enjoys immunities which do not attach to chattel property. A noble lord may run into as much debt as he pleases, and then, with impunity, defraud all his creditors. He may live in the utmost profusion: he may borrow money to support his extravagance, or for providing portions for younger children, making the most solemn promises, or even giving his written engagement to repay it or he may raise loans, and with these loans buy houses and land, and when he dies leave the houses and land purchased with this borrowed money to whom he pleases: and in all these cases the lenders who have trusted to the honour of a peer have no power to touch a shilling-worth of his real estates.-Black Book.

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CHAPTER II.

HONORARY TITLES.

By honour, in its proper and genuine signification, we mean nothing else but the good opinion of others, which is counted more or less substantial, the more or less noise or bustle is made about the demonstration of it; and when we say the sovereign is the fountain of honour, it signifies that he has the power, by titles, ceremonies, or both together, to stamp a mark upon whom he pleases, that shall be as current as his coin, and procure the owner the good opinion of every body, whether he deserves it or not.-Mandeville.

I had the curiosity to inquire in a particular manner by what methods great numbers had procured to themselves high titles of honour and prodigious estates; and I conAfined my inquiry to a very modern period, however without grating upon the present times, because I would be sure to give no offence....... A great number of persons concerned were called up, and upon a very slight examination discovered such a scene of infamy, that I cannot reflect upon it without some seriousness. Perjury, oppression, subornation, fraud, pandarism, and the like infirmities, were amongst the most excusable arts they had to mention; and for these I gave, as it was reasonable, great allowance. But when some confessed they owed their greatness and wealth to the prostituting of their own wives and daughters; others to the betraying their country or their prince; some to poisoning; more to the perverting of justice, in order to destroy the innocent; I hope I may be pardoned, if these discoveries inclined me a little to abate of that profound veneration which I am naturally apt to pay to persons of high rank, who ought to be treated with the utmost respect due to their sublime dignity by us their inferiors.-Swift.

Titles are but nick-names, and every nick-name is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself; but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character, which degrades it. It reduces man into the diminutive of man in things which are great, and the countefeit of woman in things which are little. It talks about its fine blue rib

bon like a girl, and shows its new garter like a child. A certain writer, of some antiquity, says, "When I was a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

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When we think or speak of a judge or a general, we associate with it the ideas of office and character; we think of gravity in the one, and bravery in the other: but when we use a word merely as a title, no ideas associate with it. Through all the vocabulary of Adam, there is not such an animal as a duke or a count; neither can we connect any certain idea with the words. Whether they mean strength or weakness, wisdom or folly, a child or a man, or the rider or the horse, is all equivocal. What respect, then, can be paid to that which describes nothing, and means nothing? Imagination has given figure and character to centaurs, satyrs, and down to all the fairy tribe; but titles baffle even the powers of fancy, and are a chimerical nondescript.

But this is not all. If a whole country is disposed to hold them in contempt, all their value is gone, and none will own them. It is common opinion only that makes them anything, or nothing, or worse than nothing. There is no occasion to take titles away, for they take themselves away when society concurs to ridicule them.Paine.

CHAPTER III.

ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS. A RELIGIOUS establishment is no part of Christianity, it is only the means of inculcating it. Amongst the Jews, the rights and offices, the order, family, and succession of the priesthood, were marked out by the authority which declared the law itself. These, therefore, were parts of the Jewish religion, as well as the means of transmitting it. Not so with the new institution. It cannot be proved that any form of church-government was laid down in the Christian, as it had been in the Jewish Scriptures,* with a view of fixing a constitution for succeeding

* This may be doubted, and with great reason.