isolation.

The buzz of conversation in the House impedes its usual business no more
than the dust raised by a troop impedes its march. The judges--who in
the Upper House were mere assistants, without the privilege of
speaking, except when questioned--had taken their places on the second
woolsack; and the three Secretaries of State theirs on the third.

The heirs to peerages flowed into their compartment, at once without and
within the House, at the back of the throne.

The peers in their minority were on their own benches. In 1705 the
number of these little lords amounted to no less than a
dozen--Huntingdon, Lincoln, Dorset, Warwick, Bath, Barlington,
Derwentwater--destined to a tragical death--Longueville, Lonsdale,
Dudley, Ward, and Carteret: a troop of brats made up of eight earls, two
viscounts, and two barons.

In the centre, on the three stages of benches, each lord had taken his
seat. Almost all the bishops were there. The dukes mustered strong,
beginning with Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset; and ending with George
Augustus, Elector of Hanover, and Duke of Cambridge, junior in date of
creation, and consequently junior in rank. All were in order, according
to right of precedence: Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, whose grandfather
had sheltered Hobbes, at Hardwicke, when he was ninety-two; Lennox, Duke
of Richmond; the three Fitzroys, the Duke of Southampton, the Duke of
Grafton, and the Duke of Northumberland; Butler, Duke of Ormond;
Somerset, Duke of Beaufort; Beauclerk, Duke of St. Albans; Paulet, Duke
of Bolton; Osborne, Duke of Leeds; Wrottesley Russell, Duke of Bedford,
whose motto and device was _Che sara sara_, which expresses a
determination to take things as they come; Sheffield, Duke of
Buckingham; Manners, Duke of Rutland; and others. Neither Howard, Duke
of Norfolk, nor Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, was present, being
Catholics; nor Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, the French Malbrouck, who
was at that time fighting the French and beating them. There were no
Scotch dukes then--Queensberry, Montrose, and Roxburgh not being
admitted till 1707.

CHAPTER VI.

THE HIGH AND THE LOW.

All at once a bright light broke upon the House. Four doorkeepers
brought and placed on each side of the throne four high candelabra
filled with wax-lights. The throne, thus illuminated, shone in a kind
of purple light. It was empty but august. The presence of the queen
herself could not have added much majesty to