eft vacant between the tiers of benches placed along
three sides of the chamber and the throne. In this space, which was
covered with the state carpet, interwoven with the arms of Great
Britain, were four woolsacks--one in front of the throne, on which sat
the Lord Chancellor, between the mace and the seal; one in front of the
bishops, on which sat the judges, counsellors of state, who had the
right to vote, but not to speak; one in front of the dukes, marquises,
and earls, on which sat the Secretaries of State; and one in front of
the viscounts and barons, on which sat the Clerk of the Crown and the
Clerk of the Parliament, and on which the two under-clerks wrote,
kneeling.

In the middle of the space was a large covered table, heaped with
bundles of papers, registers, and summonses, with magnificent inkstands
of chased silver, and with high candlesticks at the four corners.

The peers took their seats in chronological order, each according to the
date of the creation of his peerage. They ranked according to their
titles, and within their grade of nobility according to seniority. At
the bar stood the Usher of the Black Rod, his wand in his hand. Inside
the door was the Deputy-Usher; and outside, the Crier of the Black Rod,
whose duty it was to open the sittings of the Courts of Justice with the
cry, "Oyez!" in French, uttered thrice, with a solemn accent upon the
first syllable. Near the Crier stood the Serjeant Mace-Bearer of the
Chancellor.

In royal ceremonies the temporal peers wore coronets on their heads, and
the spiritual peers, mitres. The archbishops wore mitres, with a ducal
coronet; and the bishops, who rank after viscounts, mitres, with a
baron's cap.

It is to be remarked, as a coincidence at once strange and instructive,
that this square formed by the throne, the bishops, and the barons, with
kneeling magistrates within it, was in form similar to the ancient
parliament in France under the two first dynasties. The aspect of
authority was the same in France as in England. Hincmar, in his
treatise, "De Ordinatione Sacri Palatii," described in 853 the sittings
of the House of Lords at Westminster in the eighteenth century. Strange,
indeed! a description given nine hundred years before the existence of
the thing described.

But what is history? An echo of the past in the future; a reflex from
the future on the past.

The assembly of Parliament was obligatory only once in every seven
years.

The Lords