In surveying this splendid apartment, the mind naturally goes forward, since it presents the fancy with no past history. What is to be its future? Is this House to be the scene of a further development of vast imperial resources? Is it to be graced by a perpetuated aristocracy, surviving every change in society and in arts, by the force of their own character, as furnishing a high example to mankind of “whatsoever things are lovely and of good report?” Is this roof to resound with the voices of high-minded men, asserting from age to age their privilege to be foremost in defence of religion and of humanity, and to do and to suffer for the good of their fellow-subjects, and the welfare of mankind? Is the British Peerage to grow brighter with high moral qualities, than with hereditary honours, and to be cherished by an enlightened spirit of public virtue as a standard of all that is honourable, and as a pattern of what is most excellent in the ideal of the true Christian gentleman? Or must the sad reverse be true, and must this House be the scene of the last act in the eventful history of England? Shall a factitious nobility be crowded into these chief seats of the realm; men devoid of ennobling antecedents, and not less so of honour and of worth? Shall the decay of a mighty Empire be marked by such a House of Lords as may facilitate the plans of the demagogue, sinking the Sovereign to a Doge, and the Church to a State hireling, and giving to the Commons the unrestrained privilege of revolution and anarchy? These are questions which a well-wisher to the British Empire cannot but suggest, in view of events which have lately taken place; and especially in view of the fact, that the House of Lords has not unfrequently of late suffered itself to be disgraced by breaches of Christian courtesy, not to say of common decency, which, if multiplied in such a conspicuous place, must tend to barbarize the world. Let us hear no more of disgraceful scenes in the American Congress, till hereditary noblemen, who have little else to do, can furnish mankind with a wholesome example of high legislative decorum! For unless noblemen will reflect upon their position, and act upon convictions of what is necessary to the credit of their rank, in a day when true gentlemen are by no means rare, outside their glittering circle, and even among plain republicans, they must not wonder if they too should become as a worn-out form, or an exploded theory. Who knows how soon this superb hall of legislation may be exhibited as the chief memorial of their existence? If the British Peerage proves untrue to the Church of England, and degrades itself to the bare responding of an _Amen_ to every momentary _Credo_ of Ministers and Commons, what use of such machinery? This palace shall be even as those of Venice. This gorgeous interior shall be kept under the key of the mere _cicerone_, and shown as a thing of the past to the staring traveller, as he marvels