It would, therefore, be another step towards constituting the aristocracy of the state on a more solid and reasonable basis, if the orders of baronets, and of knights of various descriptions, were purified of their anomalies, and rendered attainable only under rules of a more general and fixed nature than at present prevail. Both these classes of nobles--for so they may be called--require considerable purification; the former, that of baronet, should be made the intermediate class between the nobles by personal merit, or knights, and those who are nobles by their lands, the peers. As was observed before, no baronetcy should be conferred unless a real estate of a certain value could be shown to be possessed, _clear_ of all mortgage and debt; and the retention of such an estate for a certain number of generations should establish a legal claim to the title of baronet; while the subsequent increase of the same estate, and a similar retention of it for a certain number of descents, should establish a further claim to the honour of the peerage. If the orders of knighthood were made more difficult of entry, and if they were specially reserved only for public personal services, they would rise again in public estimation, and would be suitable for all purposes of reward required by the sovereign. At the same time, and as a consequence of this, peers and baronets should not be admitted into the orders of knighthood--they should be satisfied with their own dignities. The garter, the thistle, and the shamrock should be reserved especially for the great military and naval commanders of the realm: the bath, and perhaps one or two other new orders, should be destined for men of eminence in whatever line of life they might be able to render service to their country. It is an opinion controverted by some, but it seems founded in reason, that the twelve judges, who are at the head of their most honourable profession, should not merely be allowed to sit on the benches of the House of Lords, but that they should have the right of voting therein, and, in fact, be summoned as peers for life upon their elevation to the bench. No order of men in the whole state would exercise power more conscientiously, and from no other source could the Upper House derive at once such an immense increase of deliberative strength in the revision and framing of the laws. The bench of spiritual lords, and the bench of legal lords, ought to form two of the purest ornaments in the bright galaxy of the peers of the realm. We shall content ourselves for the present with indicating two other points, recognised and admitted by the constitutional forms of the government, but at present much lost sight of; and they may be considered as affecting the lowest order--the very root of the whole nobility of the land.