The other two persons, are those of two noblemen in great credit with the church, even more of fanatics than tories. Neither of them is deficient in a certain oratorical fury, which, however, savors much more of the pulpit than the Parliament.
In the first place, that fanatical looking figure which is watching you with a fiery black eye, playing with the ruffles of his shirt, with the knobs of his umbrella, is Lord Winchelsea; an honest man, probably, and a furious, but sincere protestant. There is an appearance of conviction in the intemperate homilies that he improvises for the House of Lords, or the columns of the Standard, which in some measure palliates their haughty intolerance. This noble zealot, even while he is preaching up the persecution of popery, persuades himself, I am confident, that his own apostleship will secure him martyrdom.
As to that other personage—that huge and deformed colossus, whom you would take for a chosen cuirassier discharged from service in consequence of excessive fatness—though his protestant mysticism may be of rather larger calibre, I should be inclined to put less faith in his relics. This Lord Roden—for it is Lord Roden—was in his youth a miscreant, who acknowledged neither God nor Devil, and worshipped only his dinners and his debaucheries. But in the middle of one of those nights of excess, he had a vision somewhat like that which cried out to Swedenbourg—You eat too much. From that moment, submissive to supreme advice, the Earl of Roden reformed his diet and his irregular habits, and he has become by degrees, the evangelical and political preacher that he is at the present time. In other respects this conversion has in no degree diminished his embonpoint; and his new piety does not prevent his being a most furious Orangist, ever ready, if permitted, to sacrifice to his monarch a magnificent hetacomb of Irish Catholics.
Let us, for the present, cross the chamber, in giving a coup d'œil to the benches ranged before the bar, and facing the throne. These are called the independent benches. The majority of the peers whom you observe seated there have been ministers. The greatest, both in personal appearance and public fame, is Lord Grey. Observe his tall person, how thin, frail, and bent it seems! After his seventieth year he was unable to give himself up any longer to public affairs; he wanted physical strength to continue the arduous labor of reform. He himself placed the load on shoulders which he had accustomed to bear it; and finally resigned both power and the active part he formerly took in parliamentary discussion. Let justice be rendered to him while still living; he has been a bold and loyal statesman; as soon as he found the helm entrusted to his hands, he steered the ship of state on principles that he had for thirty years recommended. He has not proved a miserable traitor to his promises and his past history, as the perjured ministers of revolutionary origin in France, the worthless product of that gloriously useless revolution of July. He is the first whig who ever dared to carry into practice his own principles. Assuredly, it required something more than ordinary determination to open to reform that wide gate, which he knew could never again be closed.
In addition to this, he was no common speaker. The impression of his dignified, convincing and penetrating oratory, is still deeply impressed on the recollection of those who were accustomed to hear him; the air and manner of a great nobleman, which always distinguished him, gave additional force to his authority. The noble affability of his manners would remind you of the old Duke of Montmorency-Laval. There is this difference between them, that Lord Grey did not succeed in forming and supporting his ministry alone by the influence of his fine manners, as the ci-devant plenipotentiary of Charles X at Vienna, did in respect to his embassies.
The other nobleman of coarse appearance, still fresh and blonde, is the Earl of Ripon, politically better known by his second title of Viscount Goderich. He also was raised for a moment to the top of the ministerial ladder; but it does not appear that he has made up his mind to remain in private life, into which situation his incapacity made him so soon fall back. However, if he aspires to reascend, he has not taken the right road to accomplish his designs; it is no longer the period when one may balance between two opinions, or feed on two political parties. It would be a double mistake in him to persist in his attempts to reseize the reins of supreme authority. The confusion of his reasoning as well as of his ideas, when he attempts to speak, proves very clearly that he does not possess the clear and firm head necessary to manage the furious horses of the chariot of state.
The Duke of Richmond has never raised himself to the same sublime elevation; he is one of those poor nobles whose liberalism must be maintained by high and lucrative employments. He is one of those aristocratic worthies, always ready for any sort of military or civil work, and all sort of salaries. Lieutenant General and aid-de-camp of the king, his grace has not hesitated to stoop to manage the mails, and to become a member of a whig cabinet. At the present moment, he has the bearing of one who flatters himself with the chimerical hope of a juste-milieu administration, of which he would be a member. Louis XVIII would have placed him in his upper house. The noble duke, remarkable for a false air of Parisian elegance, which distinguishes his carriage from that of our great men, usually so full of stiffness and formality; yet I do not think that any of the modern great men of France have ever, as the Duke of Richmond often does, crossed their legs and raised their feet higher than the level of their heads, in full session, for the purpose of better viewing themselves in their polished boots.
Excepting the Duke of Wellington, we have not yet met a single nobleman who can call himself truly fashionable. Ah! but see here is Lord Alvanley. Yes, this little man, erect, bloated, swollen, breathless, careless, ill-dressed, with nothing recherché about him but his yellow gloves, and looking as if he had just come from a debauch to which he was anxious to return, is one of the chief representatives of modern fashion in the House of Lords. Formerly he was a whig; now he is a tory, or rather he is a bon convive, and belongs to the party which gives the best dinners and suppers. As the tories are distinguished for their sumptuous entertainments—therefore he is a tory. He ought not to have waited until he was ruined to have become a conservative. No matter! having eaten up his own property, he now helps others to do the same thing; he pays with his company and his gaiety. He has, in fact, a rich vein of humor; one might make a large volume of his witticisms. He is always sober at the House. It was his evil genius which inspired him on one occasion to grapple with O'Connell; the contest was unequal; the agitator wields the most deadly repartee. Fashionable and witty as Lord Alvanley is, he will nevertheless retain, during his life, graved on his forehead, the title of bloated buffoon, inflicted on him by the rude adversary whom he so imprudently attacked.
This young man of a handsome form, gracious in his appearance, and of striking mien, going out of the House, is the Earl of Errol. He votes with the ministry, although he is almost a member of the royal family. He is, in fact, a son-in-law, sous-officiel, of William IV, having married one of the illegitimate daughters of his Majesty. I should be glad to show you his brother-in-law, the Earl of Munster, the illegitimate issue of the same illustrious parent; but he rarely attends the sittings of Parliament. High and profitable sinecures have been showered upon these noble Earls. You see that in this age of constitutional governments, calling themselves moral and economical, sovereigns still shower, after the manner of Louis XIV, wealth and honors on their bastards.
You would hardly ask the name of that old man, so withered by age, whose slender legs are pushed into those old fashioned boots, with his twisted queue leaping about on the shining and powdered collar of an old blue frock. You would say it was some old French emigrant, forgotten in 1814 by the Restoration, and left on this side of the water. Observe how he moves to and fro; it is his constant motion. The eighty years of the Earl of Westmoreland do not prevent his being the most stirring and active tory in the House. He has been a member of the cabinet; and occasionally, at distinct intervals, he will still raise his old voice in defence of his old cause. Immediately on the adjournment of the House, you may see him mount an old horse, as lank as himself, and gallop off. It is perhaps a mere fancy, but it seems to me that on the day the old Earl and his horse fail to return, toryism will be no more. In spite of myself I am accustomed to embody in this old man, all that remains of energy and strength in that dying party. He looks like the last living and moving form in the midst of the inanimate skeletons of this aristocracy, so fast crumbling into dust.