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aristocracy of this fluid, exactly define the relative virtues of the venous and arterial circulation. If blood be used, in a metaphorical sense, to denote antiquity of pedigree, it remains to be shown that chronological dates are a just criteria of moral excellence; but, as we see no analogy between the succession of time and the qualities of the mind, the metaphorical construction sought to be attached to the word "blood," is as objectionable as the literal one. Only another remark on this folly: gentle reader, what think you of the aristocracy of the bile, or of the gastric juices, or of the wax in your ears, or the lachrymal exudations of the eyes? Is any one of these less irrational, than the aristocracy of the blood?

We now come to wealth, as the test or standard of distinction of rank. There are only three ways, by which it can be acquired. First: it may be inherited; in that case, it is a fortunate accident, and does not entitle its lucky possessor to any superiority over those who are less favoured. Secondly: it may be obtained by fraud or robbery; then it is a badge of infamy. Thirdly: it may be accumulated by fair dealing and honest labour; in this last case, and in this alone, it is a mark of honour and a title to merit.

Notwithstanding the oft repeated remark of the schoolmaster being abroad, it must be confessed, and confessed with sorrow and shame, that the people of England judge men and things far too much by external appearances. They see a fellow-creature, exactly like themselves, in all but adventitious circumstances, who may have merged the dignity of manhood in the degradation of the peerage; or another, who may have sacrificed all public principle to tie a garter round his knee, or stick a star upon his breast; and lo! the multitude fall down, and worship the harlequin and the harlequinade. You shall see a carriage drawn by four horses, with a coronet on the pannels, driven by a coachman wearing a wig surmounted by a three-cornered hat, and attended by two tall footmen with long sticks, stop at a hotel. How smiling is the landlady! how obsequious is Boniface! how active are the waiters! And yet perhaps the owner of this equipage is an eldest son, who, by the law of primogeniture, has disinherited his brothers and sisters of their share in the patrimonial estates, and purchased the glare of heartless splendour by sacrificing the best feelings of humanity. How hollow is such a state of things! How seldom do we ask the question, 'How live the tenants of this monopolizer,-those tenants whose labour provides him with his luxuries?" Pity it is that this question is not constantly asked, and the consequences of the answer well weighed. Men would then begin to doubt the boasted excellencies of our matchless constitution, and thus make a most important step to sound political knowledge.

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How strange and inconsistent does it appear that, in a Christian community professing implicit confidence in revelation, almost the whole

people should act towards each other on principles which that revelation expressly condemns, worshipping a Dives and spitting on a Lazarus! We have erected a temple to Mammon, and daily offer sacrifice on his altar. Genius, virtue, industry, and patriotism, are held of small account, unless accompanied by a large rent-roll. As in the theatre, the gaudy decorations of melo-drama have almost banished Shakspeare from the stage, and extinguished legitimate tragedy and comedy, so, in the tone and structure of society, men are rather ruled by their eyes than their reason. We too much resemble in our tastes the audience of Rome, described by Horace, who clapped their hands and strained their voices, not in admiration of the great Roscius, but solely on seeing an actor advance upon the stage, arrayed in splendid habiliments, but who had not opened his lips. It was the tinsel alone which they admired.

Dixit adhuc aliud? Nil sane. Quid placet ergo?

Lana Tarentino violas imitata veneno.

If this blind deference paid to wealth and titles be productive of evil, so far as it breaks the community down into castes, creating insolence on the one hand and servility on the other, the consequences of it are still more hurtful in a political point of view. In the peerage, it has established a race of hereditary legislators, whose interests are directly opposed to the general prosperity of the nation, and who are empowered to make laws for the benefit of their own order, however repugnant those laws may be to the wishes of the people. In the House of Commons, wealth again rules lord of the ascendant, for both the electors and the elected are bound by law to possess a qualification measured in gold. In the army, the same spirit of Mammon prevails, for a fool or a coward may purchase military rank, while a poor veteran must remain for life a subaltern.

If we look at the composition of the peerage, we find it composed of men selected from three classes of society, lawyers, soldiers and sailors, and monied individuals. But men of literature and science, whose writings and whose inventions have benefitted the world, are positively excluded from rank, on account of their poverty. It was thought a wondrous condescension on the part of the crown to confer a baronetcy on Sir Walter Scott, although he did more good to the human race than all the kings who have swayed the English sceptre. The improvements made by Mr. Watt in the steam engine have accelerated civilization in a ratio quite incalculable, but had he been raised to the peerage, Grosvenor Square would have gone into deep mourning. But there was no need of apprehension on that score: he was a mechanic, and possessed a rare genius,—two all-sufficient reasons to exclude him from the higher honours of the state.

An order of hereditary nobles, possessing legislative power as the

adjunct of birth, and enjoying other exclusive privileges, is incompatible with the liberty and welfare of a state. Their numbers being few, they can easily combine, and frustrate the wishes of the commons and the king. Possessing enormous revenues, and never feeling the pressure of want, they can have no sympathies with the working classes, and cannot believe in the extremity of distress which others are doomed to experience. With some rare exceptions, they either imbibe habits of insolence or tyranny, or sink down into sensuality and lasciviousness. They have no motives to labour, and thus scorn a tradesman. Wearied with satiety and idleness, they become the patrons of pugilists, or jockeys, or gamblers, for some stimulus they must have, but they become too depraved to delight in the stimulus of virtue. They starve there tenants, to make themselves ridiculous on the continent; and leave their proxies at home, to wither the just hopes of an industrious and over-taxed people. Their conduct gives a general tone to society, and their example is imitated by the public. A nation thus gradually gets steeped in vice, and its constitution is subverted by its moral turpitude. So fell imperial Rome. Or the contrary effect may be produced. The people may at last revolt and kick down the idols whom they had worshipped. So fell the dynasty of Capet, for Louis XVI. was an expiation and a sacrifice for the sins of his aristocracy.

Nor are these the only evils attendant on an order of nobility. It can only exist, when supported by money, and that article can only be perpetuated in a family by the law of primogeniture, a law abhorrent in the sight of God and man. How horrible is the idea of making what is vulgarly called "an eldest son!" Does it not amount to an abandonment of the rest of the children? If then noble fathers and noble mothers can thus desert the offspring of their own loins, and consent to leave their daughters destitute, how can the people expect from them a single act of common justice or common humanity? If the heart be seared in its first, and dearest, and holiest affections, and paternal duty and motherly tenderness be dried up in the very fountains of natural love, how can you, mechanics and tradesmen, hope to receive pity or aid from those who have immolated their own flesh and blood on the altar of false pride and unhallowed ambition? As long as this state of things continues, your child can never rise in the army, or navy, or in civil departments, for these higher grades must be reserved to feed, clothe, and house the rejected juniors of aristocratic families. Talk of reform, indeed! This is the reform the people want-the repeal of the law of primogeniturea law which pauperizes millions to confer unbounded surperfluities on a few hundred houses!

It may not be unprofitable to notice the distinction which the law makes between property in land and property in intellect. The former may be transmitted from generation to generation; but not so the latter.

If a man of science invent a new machine, and secure an ownership in it by patent, that ownership is lost after the lapse of fourteen years. If a man of literature compose an instructive work, on which he may have expended years of labour, his copyright only ensures to him for fourteen years, so that if he dies during that term, his family have no benefit after its expiration; and even if he should survive that period, he has only an interest for a second term of fourteen years. Now, if any thing deserves the name of property, it is certainly the offspring of a man's own brains; and if inventions and writings had been perpetuated in families, we should have had the descendants of our poets, and historians, and philosophers, as wealthy as the aristocracy of dirty acres; but that would not have suited their purpose; and, as they make the laws, they, of course, paid no attention to the welfare of the posterity of men, who had aided in the improvement of the arts, the development of the mind, and the civilization of society.

The erroneous notions which have hitherto prevailed concerning distinctions of rank, must soon fall before the spread of education. Time was when the profession of arms was alone honourable, and when trade was deemed a degradation. The chevalier thought it praiseworthy to seize with a rude hand that wealth which he disdained to acquire by peaceful industry, and the spirit of the feudal age pardoned the robbery out of respect to the knightly character of the robber; for the golden spurs covered a multitude of sins. What the knight of antiquity took by force, the modern peer takes by legislation; for his Order compels the mechanics to eat dear bread, by virtue of the corn bill, that the splendour of an aristocracy may be supported. Thus is a deadly blow struck against trade, for the sake of the most useless and the smallest section of society. May the modern peerage soon experience the fate of their knightly predecessors, and be deprived of their unjust and exclusive privileges. If they like the trinket of a title, let them please their follies with the bauble ; but let them no longer retain the power of making laws for their own caste, to the injury of the public welfare.

DON PEDRO AND DONNA INEZ DE CASTRO.

THERE are but few personages recorded in history, who have been oftener celebrated by dramatic writers than this princess. There have been no fewer than five tragedies composed from her piteous narrative; to wit, two in English, one in French, one in Spanish, and one in Portuguese. The last, perhaps, approaches the nearest to the truth of history, and is not inferior in point of poetical merit. The author, Senhor Nicolo Luis, had no occasion to resort to fiction to heighten the passions of an audience, as the simple facts are sufficient to fill up all the senses of pity

and terror, and to show to what lengths love and revenge are capable of transporting the human mind.

The subject of this tragical piece is as follows. Don Pedro, son of Alonzo the Fourth, king of Portugal, and heir apparent to the crown, having fallen in love with a lady of the court, named Donna Inez de Castro, thought he could not share the crown which awaited him with a more amiable person. She united to all the charms of beauty, the most graceful and accomplished manners. The prince, waiving all considerations of birth and fortune, was privately married to her by the bishop of Guarda.

Notwithstanding the nuptials were performed with all the secrecy imaginable, yet they reached the king's ear, who had determined that Don Pedro should marry a daughter of the king of Castile. He questioned him as to the truth of the report; but, knowing his father's arbitrary disposition, the prince deemed it prudent then to conceal the fact.

The nobility also had intimation of the marriage, and the preference given to Inez had awakened their jealousy. Hence they took every opportunity of representing her as a woman of the greatest ambition, and pretended that very fatal consequences were to be apprehended from such an alliance: they also condemned the prince as a rash and disobedient son. The king, who was a man of weak understanding, gave ear to their calumny, and they worked upon his passions to that degree that he resolved to murder the unfortunate princess. Accordingly he set out to perpetrate the horrid deed, accompanied by three of his courtiers, and a number of armed men.

Donna Inez resided at this time at Coimbra, in the palace of Santa Clara, where she passed her time in the most private manner, educating her children, and attending to the duties of her domestic affairs.

The prince, unfortunately, was absent on a hunting party, when the king arrived. The beautiful victim came out to meet him, with her two infant children, who clung about his knees, screaming for mercy. She prostrated herself at his feet, bathed them with tears, and supplicated pity for her children, beseeching him to banish her to some remote desert, where she would gladly wander an exile with her babes.

The feeling of nature arrested his arm, just raised to plunge a dagger into her breast. But his counsellors urging the necessity of her death, and reproaching him for his disregard to the welfare of the nation, he relapsed into his former resolution, and commanded them to dispatch her! at which order they rushed forward, regardless of the cries of innocence and beauty, and instantly struck off her head.

Soon after this horrible transaction the prince arrived; but, alas! found those eyes which were wont to watch his return with fond impatience, closed in death. The sight of his beloved Inez weltering in her gore, filled his mind with distraction, and kindled into flames every spark

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