Year: 1864

at home and abroad, has lately been pub
fishing series Of articles upon the great
governing families of England. They have
been chiefly genealogical and descriptive,
the arm of the writer being mainly to in
dicate those personages in each great house
who have added splendor or notoriety to
its name. The value Of these papers to
the historical student is very great, but
they have also another bearing not so i'm
mediately apparent, but quite as important.
Perhaps, indeed, no other reason would
have induced their admission into the coll
umusof sheet whose regard for favored
classes does not savOr of the snob or the
tuft hunter. The consideration to which
we refer is the noticeable continuity of
power which the aristocracy have display
ed through all the changes of dynasty. The
last number of the Spectator (september
a. in announcing the close of the series,
dwells upon this at some length. The wri.
ter recognises the unquestionable benefit
which constitutional liberty derived from
the great families in the feudal period. he
calls attention to the fact that in all their
mutations they have never lost root, and
there have been no political crisis out of
which they have,not come with a consider
able enhancement of power. The War of
the Roses, in which they met with serious
disaster, weakened but did not PROSTATE
them. The Tudors could not subordinate
them. They were all powerful with the
Stuarts, and when the Stuarts sought the
glory of France at the expense of their own
realm they forsook that line and brought
over William from Holland. The writer
adds:


"From the act of settlement to 1891 En-
glish history is but the record Of the in-
trigue of the governing families, and when
in 1882 the people deprived them of their
legal autocracy, they and their cousins
possessed clear majority in Parliament;
they bided their time, secure that sin the
long run the influence of property was sure
to tell 1t did tell. During the long
peace which followed 1882, their property
increased enormously, the ability the class
has always displayed led them to take the
lead in all productive enterprises; they re-
formed agriculture, opened mines, built
great hsrbors, planted forests, cut canals,
accepted and pro6ted by the railway sys-
TEN, and built the faubourgs of the great
cities. Able and audacious, still regarded
with curious liking by the people and full
of that individuality, that sense of person
alright which is the strength of an aris-
tocracy, they again threw themselves into
politics, and regained nearly their ancient
monopoly of power. They alone could
afford TO follow politics from boyhood as
profession, and that fact gave and gives
them twenty years start of all competi-
tors. They alone have, as q class, that
instinct of control given to able indiyidn-
ais in all classes, and they therefore speed
ily monopoliEed high administrative office.
Above ali they alone had as class not to
be made known to the people. Smith
must serve before constituency knows
what Smith is; but Seymour's name tells
the same constituency all about him, his


antecedents and his connections, his for
tune and his tone. Hence preference at


th 9 hustings, almost ludicrously strong, so


strong that in the counties q bad specimen
of the class, some redeyed, knock kneed,
gawky lad of twenty. one has often bet
ter chance of public favor than the man
who has all his life been the guiding mind
of the locality. -.....h a .-at


The Spectator goeson 70 remark that out
from the tlirty-one families whose histories
have been given one-fourth OF the present
English House of Commons is derived,
either by alliauee or by direct descent
A list is submitted, comprising seventy
members, each one of which is shown to
be SO related. Besides'these, If We add
the cases where there are dependent Dor.
Oughs, it will be found that one hundred
and ten members owe their seats in Parlis-
ment to their power-a clear working
forth of the English House of Commons.


Whatever COED has been the result of
English conservatism may be. attributed
in . very important degree to the influence
of the aristocracy. But there are disad-
vantaees. We quote from the Spectator
upon this point, and it will be seen that
the subject is treated with none too little
moderation:


at (the aristocracy) is the element of
resistance, the breeze in the brick, the
! hair in the mortar, the fibre in the wood,
the bone in the body which they con-
tribute to our social fabrtc-the quantities
of permanenee which they add to our IN
stitutiops.. They are the trees in the
hedoe. and that simile also expresses the


one great disadvantage Of their existence.


They shade the field too much. Oorn


must be very good and the sunshine very
\ bright for it to ripsn under them. VI 70
quit metaphor, Il is the disadvantage Of
Il sristocracy that all political ability not
Immediately connected with rank has
I double task TO perferm-frst to rise to the
laristocratic level, then to persuade the
people 1t takes an Gble man twenty
iyeafs to obtain from the nation the con-
I liberation these families obtain from birth,
Ito put Jones at forty-five on level with