Secondly, though not _per se_, or, in a professional sense, military as a body, (Heaven forbid that they should be so!) yet, as always furnishing a disproportionate number from their order to the martial service of the country, they diffuse a standard of high honour through our army and navy, which would languish in a degree not suspected whenever a democratic influence should thoroughly pervade either. It is less for what they do in this way, than for what they prevent, that our gratitude is due to the nobility. However, even the _positive_ services of the nobility are greater in this field than a democrat is aware of. Are not all our satirical novels, &c., daily describing it as the infirmity of English society, that so much stress is laid upon aristocratic connexions? Be it so: but do not run away from your own doctrine, O democrat! as soon as the consequences become startling. One of these consequences, which cannot be refused, is the depth of influence and the extent of influence which waits upon the example of our nobles. Were the present number of our professional nobles decimated, they would still retain a most salutary influence. We have spoken sufficiently of the ruin which follows where a nation has no natural and authentic leaders for her armies. And we venture to add our suspicion--that even France, at this moment, owes much of the courage which marks her gentry, though a mere wreck from her old aristocracy, to the chivalrous feeling inherited from her ancestral remembrances. Good officers are not made such by simple constitutional courage; honour, and something of a pure gentlemanly temper, must be added.