re to complain, there would be a pretty
tumult! Silence is the rule. I have no doubt that heaven imposes silence
on the damned, otherwise heaven itself would be punished by their
everlasting cry. The happiness of Olympus is bought by the silence of
Cocytus. Then, people, be silent! I do better myself; I approve and
admire. Just now I was enumerating the lords, and I ought to add to the
list two archbishops and twenty-four bishops. Truly, I am quite affected
when I think of it! I remember to have seen at the tithe-gathering of
the Rev. Dean of Raphoe, who combined the peerage with the church, a
great tithe of beautiful wheat taken from the peasants in the
neighbourhood, and which the dean had not been at the trouble of
growing. This left him time to say his prayers. Do you know that Lord
Marmaduke, my master, was Lord Grand Treasurer of Ireland, and High
Seneschal of the sovereignty of Knaresborough in the county of York? Do
you know that the Lord High Chamberlain, which is an office hereditary
in the family of the Dukes of Ancaster, dresses the king for his
coronation, and receives for his trouble forty yards of crimson velvet,
besides the bed on which the king has slept; and that the Usher of the
Black Rod is his deputy? I should like to see you deny this, that the
senior viscount of England is Robert Brent, created a viscount by Henry
V. The lords' titles imply sovereignty over land, except that of Earl
Rivers, who takes his title from his family name. How admirable is the
right which they have to tax others, and to levy, for instance, four
shillings in the pound sterling income-tax, which has just been
continued for another year! And all the time taxes on distilled spirits,
on the excise of wine and beer, on tonnage and poundage, on cider, on
perry, on mum, malt, and prepared barley, on coals, and on a hundred
things besides. Let us venerate things as they are. The clergy
themselves depend on the lords. The Bishop of Man is subject to the Earl
of Derby. The lords have wild beasts of their own, which they place in
their armorial bearings. God not having made enough, they have invented
others. They have created the heraldic wild boar, who is as much above
the wild boar as the wild boar is above the domestic pig and the lord
is above the priest. They have created the griffin, which is an eagle to
lions, and a lion to eagles, terrifying lions by his wings, and eagles
by his mane. They have the guivre, the unicorn, the serp