The spirit which dictated a limitation equally opposed to every generous feeling and to every statesman-like view, is consistent only with such influences. When the ministry founded that new source of patronage, it sought to acquire for itself a kind of popularity amongst its adherents. Had it admitted intellectual merit, it would have obtained popularity for the Crown from an enlightened nation. But the interests of party are transitory,—those of the sovereign permanent: it is the interest of party to be ever jealous of the personal popularity of the Crown. In thus excluding from its honours one class of the intelligence of the country, did it never occur to the short-sighted minister who planned this arrangement, that some portion of the talents thus insulted, might be driven to other inquiries which it would neither be easy to answer nor even expedient to discuss? A party which first refuses to science the means of acquiring competence,—then excludes it from personal honours because it has already been denied official position,—and which refuses it hereditary rank, because it has not devoted itself to the acquisition of wealth, will naturally cause questions to be raised as to the expediency of different forms of government. Of what class, it will naturally be asked, are the persons who have made such laws? Is the possession of hereditary rank at all necessary for the government of the country? At a distant period, and under a less complicated form of society, the obvious disadvantages of appointing a legislator for life from the accident of his birth, instead of the fitness of his talents, might have been tolerated under the influence of force. It has since been consecrated by established usage, and some of its evils mitigated by the continual infusion of fresh blood into decaying stocks. But at the present day, and amidst the multiplied relations of highly civilized life, the question whether an upper chamber ought to be hereditary, or appointed only for life, is one upon which nations as well as philosophers, avowedly disagree. In a very few years this great question will come to be more thoroughly investigated, and those who now advocate the continuance of existing institutions, will then have enough on their hands, without rashly forcing, by injustice and insult, both talent and interest into the ranks of their opponents. At present it is sufficient to call attention to a statement often made, that a chamber of Peers for life is incompatible with the existence of a limited monarchy. This, like many other party dogmas, is a mere gratuitous assertion, put forward to alarm the timid who have experienced the advantages and are anxious for the continuance of that form of government.