KNIGHT'S PENNY MAGAZINE. THE EYE-WITNESS. THE LANDED ARISTOCRACY AND THE LEAGUE. one. THE LANDED ARISTOCRACY. On entering the House of Lords, and looking round, with some knowledge of the adjuncts and personalities of individual peers, we are at once struck with the fact, and appreciate its literal significance, that the aristocracy of England is a TERRITORIAL Here is no merchant, no manufacturer, no shopkeeper. They are not merely LORDS, but LAND lords. True, amongst them are peers who, either themselves or their parents, have sprung from the middle classes. Industry, talent, and genius enable individuals to reach the honours of the upper house. Eldon is dead, but his son inherits the title and the estates. The Lord Chancellor, John Singleton Copley, Baron Lyndhurst, is the son of the artist who painted the Death of Chatham. Lord Campbell boasts that his parentage was that of a worthy minister of the Established Church of Scotland. And though Lord Brougham comes from a higher grade than the toiling section of the middle class, his propulsion upwards has been owing to his own wonderful activity and marvellously varied powers. The Law is indeed the main road from the middle class of society into the House of Lords. But there are others. Brilliant achievements by land and sea introduce middle class men into the peerage; and Wellington owes but little to the fact that he comes of a noble family. Nay, great wealth acquired by merchandise is no absolute barrier, if the individual is otherwise of service to the state. Lord Ashburton, originally Mr. Thomas Baring, was not born a poor man; his connections were all of that station which verges on, and even enters into, the aristocratic class. But his chief merit arises from the fact, that as head of the mercantile house of Baring, one of the greatest in the world, his wealth, his ability, and his character, gave him a position in the country enabling him to rank with, and ultimately bringing him into, the peerage. These exceptional cases, however, do not negative the main fact of the TERRITORIAL character of our aristocracy. LAND is its basis. A vast majority of the dates of our peerage are certainly modern. The premier baron of England, Lord de Ros, goes no farther back than the thirteenth century; the premier duke, Norfolk, is of the fourteenth, which is also the starting-point of the House of Derby. But this is owing to the fact that many of the titles are revivifications. War and confiscations have made many a revived title of recent date. In Gibbon's beautiful Digression on the Family of Courtenay,' he remarks, "The proudest families are content to lose, in the darkness of the middle ages, the tree of their pedigree, which, however deep and lofty, must ultimately rise from a plebeian root." And this reminds us of that same Courtenay family, still existent in the House of Lords. Do you see that plain, kindly-looking man on the ministerial benches? It is the Earl of Devon. In the House No. 17. [KNIGHT'S PENNY MAGAZINE.] B of Commons he was a member, as Mr. Courtenay; and as Mr. Courtenay he was for years clerk assistant" at the table of the House of Lords. He is collaterally descended from the ancient, proud, renowned family of Courtenay, whose glory and misfortunes Gibbon has rendered immortal. Descended from emperors of Constantinople, with branches which reigned on the banks of the Euphrates, in the south of France, and the west of England, here they are, their memory still embalmed in the person of the present Earl of Devon, who, as head of the Powderham, or Devon branch, still retains, as Gibbon says, "the plaintive motto which asserts the innocence, and deplores the fall, of their ancient house." It is Ubi lapsus? Quid feci? Where have I fallen? What have I done? Looking round the House of Lords, we perceive that the peers dress as ́gentlemen usually dress in these prosaic and undistinguished days. Meeting them in the street, though most of them, from their air and manner, would at once be known as high bred men, we should not, unless made aware of the fact, recognise them as having any greater stake in the country than the reputed son of Coeur de Lion, "lord of his presence, and no land besides." Yet there is Earl Fitzwilliam, one of our very great lords of the soil. He is talking with the Marquis of Lansdowne, another great territorial peer. Across the House you perceive the Duke of Buccleuch, who, like the Marquis of Breadalbane or Lord Panmure, hold many an acre of "braid Scotland." How largely, too, does the extension of the west end of London contribute to the annual income of the Marquis of Westminster! And the Duke of Sutherland owns an extent of country which many an ancient king would have envied. But it would be useless to enter on a muster-roll the great territorial peers. They do not certainly form a majority of the House of Lords; and there are some Commoners, as Lord Francis Egerton, equal to the wealthiest of them, while several others, not connected, as Lord Francis is, directly with the aristocracy, have accumulated enormous fortunes by shipping, manufactures, and trade. But the presence of the bishops, in their distinctive costume, confirms the impression of the territorial fact. They, however, seldom assemble in numbers, unless some question is involved affecting the interests of religion, humanity, or the church. The "junior bishop," however, has to attend to read prayers at the opening of each sitting, a duty which, in the House of Commons, is performed by the chaplain of the SPEAKER. The youngest bishop at present on the episcopal bench is the recently appointed Bishop of Oxford. His career has been rapid. Archdeacon of Surrey, Dean of Westminster, Bishop of Oxford, he has been within a comparatively short space of time; and has become, at the early age of forty, a spiritual peer. He may owe something to the fact that he bears the honoured name of WILBERFORCE. But he owes much to his own talent. At the opening of a railway-at the meeting of an archæological association-at an assembly of the clergy-he speaks with a depth, solidity, and power which mark him out as no ordinary man. He has already made a speech in the House of Lords on secondary punishments; and though troublesome bishops are more dreaded by the temporal peers than any other species of bore, it is to be hoped that so much promise of excellence as the Right Reverend Doctor Wilberforce has afforded will not be extinguished by his elevation to the see of Oxford. That LAND is the basis of our institutions-monarchical, aristocratic, and religious— may be seen in the relation which the lay aristocracy and the church bear to each other. Each individual prelate has a much larger amount of ecclesiastical patronage than any individual temporal peer. Thus, while the Archbishop of Canterbury has the patronage of one hundred and forty-nine livings, the Archbishop of York of |