over tarnished gilding and faded damask, and at every tread disturbs the dust upon its floor, or breaks through cobwebs dangling from its ceiling. When one sees, in the writings of such a man as Dr. Arnold, confessions of annoyance, if not of a sense of injury, from the existence of a privileged class, to which merit must constantly give way, where otherwise it would be entitled to precedence; and when one discovers, even in the highest seats of British intellect and piety, a certain deference to mere rank, which seems humiliating; and when one finds something of the spirit of _tuft-hunting_ diffused through all classes alike, from the Tory school-boy to the Whig Bishop; one feels indeed that there may be arguments against the aristocratic element in society, which have never been stated in their list of grievances by political agitators. But, after all, in an old country like England, the aristocracy exists, and there is no destroying it without destroying the nation. The infernal _guillotine_ itself cannot wholly make way with it, as France has learned to its sorrow. What then? It must be modified and perpetuated. It must be purified, and worked in with society, as its ornament, but not its fabric. This is what is done already in England. The nobility, the clergy, the gentry, the literati, the professional classes, and then the people—after all, in England they are one; “shade unperceived and softening into shade,” and joined and knit together by habits, tastes, alliances, and interests, in a wonderful order. Much yet remains to be done, and will be done, to smooth down remaining asperities between rank and rank; but the British aristocracy may be said, even now, to be a genuine one, identified with everything great and good in the nation, and, on the whole, presenting a wholesome example to other classes in the State. In all probability, so virtuous an aristocracy has never been seen elsewhere among mankind. Among them may be found specimens of human nature, whose physical and mental endowments, together with their moral worth, and intellectual accomplishments, entitle them to the highest admiration of their fellow-men. We are too well aware that side by side with such, may sit, adorned with equal rank and titles, some wretch, whose coronet has been purchased by infamy, and whose hereditary decorations are but the mockery of a character, every way pestilent and detestable. The English themselves are used to it; but it strikes a republican with amazement that such creatures should be noble, even “by courtesy.”