In what consists the honour then, continued my lord, of that nobility
of which you are so tenacious? How does it affect the glory of one’s
country or the good of mankind? A mortal enemy to liberty and the
laws, what did it ever produce in most of those countries where it has
flourished, but the rod of tyranny and the oppression of the people?
Will you presume to boast, in a republic, of a rank that is
destructive to virtue and humanity? Of a rank that makes its boast of
slavery, and wherein men blush to be men? Read the annals of your own
country; what have any of the nobility merited of her? Were any of her
deliverers nobles? The _Fursts_, the _Tills_, the _Stauffachers_, were
they gentlemen? What then is that absurd honour, about which you make
so much noise?
Think, my dear, what I suffered to hear this respectable man thus
injure, by an ill-concerted application, the cause of that friend whom
he endeavoured to serve. Your father, being irritated by so many
galling, though general invectives, strove to retort them by personal
ones. He told his lordship plainly, that never any man of his
condition talked in the manner he had done. Trouble not yourself to
plead another’s cause, added he roughly, honourable as you are, I
doubt much if you could make your own good, on the subject in
question. You demand my daughter for your pretended friend, without
knowing whether you are yourself an equal match for her; and I know
enough of the English nobility to entertain, from your discourse, a
very indifferent opinion of yours.
To this his lordship answered; whatever you may think of me, sir, I
should be very sorry to be able to give no other proof of my merit
than the name of a man who died five hundred years ago. If you know
the nobility of England, you know that it is the least prejudiced,
best informed, most sensible, and bravest of all Europe; after which
it is needless to ask whether it be the most ancient; for, when we
talk of what is, we never mind what was. We are not, it is true, the
slaves, but the friends of a prince; not the oppressors of a people,
but their leaders. The guardians of liberty, the pillars of our
country, and the support of the throne, we maintain an equilibrium
between the people and the king. Our first regards are due to the
nation, our second to him that governs: we consult not his will, but
his just prerogative. Supreme judges in the house of peers, and
sometimes legislators, we render equal justice to the king and people,
and suffer no one to say _God and my sword, but only God and my
right._