with a zeal so untiring as almost to appear to be unselfish. An English nobleman is reared for a lifetime of duty. His education is as thorough as the first institutions of learning in the world can make it. He is taught that the public good is inseparably connected with his order; and that while the law gives him special privileges, he must to make the law respected show himself worthy of the gift. He cannot be a liar nor a cheat. He must respect religion and the rights of his fellow-creatures as he understands them. And when he fails in this, as some do, he is branded by his peers as an unworthy lord; and unworthy he is, for his conduct tends directly to the ruin of the system which supports him.
The integrity and fair dealing of the English people, whether it descends from the higher orders to the lower or works upwards from the small trader till it reaches the lord, is at least obvious to the most casual observer. It appears as if even honesty and truth were summoned in and made to do service on the side of ancient customs and against democratic innovations. The English merchant, whether he is dealing in spices at Singapore, in teas at Hongkong, in wines at Xerez, or carpets at Smyrna, or in all of these and more besides, in his office in Leadenhall street, can be depended upon to deal fairly, to tell the truth, to serve the Queen, and support and sustain "our glorious aristocracy."
But honesty, which appears to be so important a feature in English character, cannot be persisted in to the injury of aristocratic rule. And when one or the other must give way, by common consent it is the least important of the two. The buying of votes—an evil that would not be tolerated an instant in America, and which w8uld be stopped in England in one week if the ruling classes desired to have it stopped—is there openly practised, wherever necessary. As the progress of democratic ideas makes votes necessary, there is nothing left but to
buy them. If they were left free, as would be the case with the ballot, men of the lower classes would find their way into Parliament. But once secure of his seat, and the danger to aristocratic rule 'past, the member of Parliament must forget that he has committed the crime of bribery. Public opinion has been relaxed in his favor, because of the great and trying necessity for his election. His course, when he is in office, must be above reproach. And we believe that no legislative body in the world is more free from the suspicion of corrupt practices than is the English Parliament.
The admiration of middle-class Englishmen for the aristocracy is only equalled by their dislike for that little band of educated men who lead the masses in the struggle against class rule. Mr. Goldwin Smith is a disturber of the public peace, a disorganizer, an enemy to the constitution. The name of Mr. Bright is bandied upon the tongues of respectable young Engiishmen, in better language, but with no less flippancy and contempt, than is that of Horace Greeley by the tobaccospitting, whisky-drinking young blackguards of Broadway and the Bowery.
The Church of England, founded in the interest of the aristocracy, has done good service. By it, infants are taught with their first lisp to be content with the station where they have been placed, and not to aspire to the pussession of the privileges of their divinely appointed betters. But schismatic panthers and the "bristled baptist boars" of dissent have so torn and harried "the milk-white hind" that she can scarce defend herself. She is forced to tolerate that which she cannot suppress, while enemies in all sorts of uniforms are marching under banners as diverse as the banners of the motley army of Peter the Hermit, putting her upon the defense of her very life.
But if the influence of the Church has declined, a new power has grown
