_North_.--I believe one Englishman, a martyr to liberty, has said something like that before. _Landor_.--Who, pray? _North_.--The butcher Ings. _Landor_.--Ah, I was not aware of it! Ings was a fine fellow. _North_.--Your republic will never do here, Mr. Landor. _Landor_.--I shall believe that a king is better than a republic when I find that a single tooth in a head is better than a set. [77] [Footnote 77: Vol. ii. p. 31.] _North_.--It would be as good logic in a monarchy-man to say, "I shall believe that a republic is better than a king when I am convinced that six noses on a face would be better than one." _Landor_.--In this age of the march of intellect, when a pillar of fire is guiding us out of the wilderness of error, you Tories lag behind, and are lost in darkness, Mr. North. Only the first person in the kingdom should be unenlightened and void, as only the first page in a book should be a blank one. It is when it is torn out that we come at once to the letters. [78] [Footnote 78: Vol. iv. p. 405.] _North_.--Well, now that you have torn out the first page of the Court Guide, we come to the Peers, I suppose. _Landor_.--The peerage is the park-paling of despotism, arranged to keep in creatures tame and wild for luxury and diversion, and to keep out the people. Kings are to peerages what poles are to rope-dancers, enabling then to play their tricks with greater confidence and security above the heads of the people. The wisest and the most independent of the English Parliaments declared the thing useless. [79] Peers are usually persons of pride without dignity, of lofty pretensions with low propensities. They invariably bear towards one another a constrained familiarity or frigid courtesy, while to their huntsmen and their prickers, their chaplains and their cooks, (or indeed any other man's,) they display unequivocal signs of ingenuous cordiality. [Footnote 79: Vol. iv. p. 400.] How many do you imagine of our nobility are not bastards or sons of bastards? [80] [Footnote 80: Vol. iv. p. 273.] _North_.--You have now settled the Peers. The Baronets come next in order. _Landor_.--Baronets are prouder than any thing we see on this side of the Dardanelles, excepting the proctors of universities, and the vergers of cathedrals; and their pride is kept in eternal agitation, both from what is above them and what is below. Gentlemen of any standing (like Walter Savage Landor, of Warwick Castle, and Lantony Abbey in Wales,) are apt to investigate their claims a little too minutely, and nobility has neither bench nor joint-stool for them in the vestibule. During the whole course of your life, have you ever seen one among this, our King James's breed of curs, that either did not curl himself up and lie snug and warm in the lowest company, [81] or slaver and whimper in fretful quest of the highest. [Footnote 81: Vol. iv. p. 400.] _North_.--But you allow the English people to be a great people.