f their eastern
neighbours. They were an unmistakable _haute noblesse_, ever polished
and dignified. Some of them, like Philippe Egalite, had the cunning,
when the time of trial arrived, to bend to the popular storm, and even
to affect a zeal for citizenship. Comparatively few of them were at once
_blase_ and brainless. It may be doubted if a single one of them
combined--as did many of the rank and file of the second generation of
the Family Compact of Upper Canada--the pretensions of an aristocrat
with the sentiments of a boor and the intellectual development of a
child. Yet further. The feeling of veneration with which the English
commonalty have for centuries regarded the House of Lords is easy enough
to understand. That feeling seems to be rapidly passing away, if,
indeed, it has not already departed. But it would not have endured from
the time of the Plantagenets to the time of Queen Victoria if it had not
had some substantial foundation to rest upon. The House of Lords has
always contained a number of men of high integrity and ability. Take it
for all and all, it is probably the most just-minded and intellectual
aristocratic assembly the world has ever seen. This may not be very high
praise, but it may at least be taken for what it is worth. Its
individual members are seldom brought sufficiently near to the lower
order of the commonalty to enable the latter to detect their weaknesses.
Their wealth, prestige and social position give them a vast influence,
while at the same time their legislative powers are held in check by the
direct representatives of the people. Most of these conditions were
directly reversed in Upper Canada, where the members of the dominant
faction were brought into the closest relations with the people
generally, insomuch that their many deficiencies could not be concealed.
Such wealth as they had they were too often known to have obtained at
the expense of the rest of the community. The Lower House formed no
efficacious check upon them, for they either managed to return a
sufficient number of their tools to control the vote in that body, or
else they rendered the Assembly's operations of no avail by means of
their influence in the Legislative Council. They had none of the
graceful suavity of the Lower Canadian seigneurs. Nor could they boast
of the superiority derived from a liberal education. Many of them--even
including some of those who held high public offices--were so illiterate
that they