establishment
imaginable. But is it so? Ask Exeter Hall; that truly British
institution is in raptures with the whole British peerage. A lord at a
Bible meeting--a lord stammering a few unconnected common-places about
the propagation of Christianity in foreign parts, or the conversion of
the Jews--a lord denouncing the Pope, or anticipating the coming of the
millennium--is a sight dear to the British public. Sneer at the Lords as
you will, expatiate on the manifest absurdity of supposing that they are
wiser and better than other people, say, what every one knows and thinks,
that you cannot transmit brains as you can the family spoons, and that
therefore the idea involved in hereditary peerage is a lie; nevertheless,
the House of Peers still continues a great fact. And it is a gorgeous
fact as well. The apartments of the Commons are poor and mean compared
with the chamber, all resplendent with crimson and gold, where the Lords
meet. As you enter the central hall in the new Houses of Parliament, the
passage to the right leads you to the Lords. We will suppose you have
got an order--any peer can give you one; and as the House commences its
sitting at five, and there is plenty of room in the gallery, you may take
your time almost as freely as the celebrated Miss Lucy Long herself.
Passing the lobby, you soon find your way into the house, the magnificent
adorning of which will be sure to excite your utmost admiration. Some
may say it is too gaudy, everything pertaining to the chamber is so
richly decorated; but it is very fine, and when Parliament is opened by
Majesty in person, and the house is crowded with all the great men of our
land, and the galleries blaze with beauty and diamonds, the effect must
be, as it has always been described, imposing in the extreme. On
ordinary evenings, however, nothing of this splendour is visible; the
house has a deserted air; an assembly of a dozen or twenty is a very fair
muster; a debate of a couple of hours is generally considered as
unusually exciting and fierce. The best description of a debate in the
Lords we have ever read is that by Disraeli, in the "Young Duke." We
quote the passage:--"The Duke of St. James took the oaths and his seat.
He was introduced by Lord Pompey. He heard a debate. We laugh at such a
thing, especially in the Upper House; but on the whole the affair is
imposing, especially if we take a part in it. Lord Exchamberlain thought
the nation going on wr