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two basins, which are surmounted by a dome of exquisite openwork,
elevated on six columns. It was there that I knew a learned Frenchman,
Monsieur l'Abbé du Cros, who belonged to the Jacobin monastery in the
Rue Saint Jacques. Half the library of Erpenius is at Marmaduke Lodge,
the other half being at the theological gallery at Cambridge. I used to
read the books, seated under the ornamented portal. These things are
only shown to a select number of curious travellers. Do you know, you
ridiculous boy, that William North, who is Lord Grey of Rolleston, and
sits fourteenth on the bench of Barons, has more forest trees on his
mountains than you have hairs on your horrible noddle? Do you know that
Lord Norreys of Rycote, who is Earl of Abingdon, has a square keep a
hundred feet high, having this device--Virtus ariete fortior; which
you would think meant that virtue is stronger than a ram, but which
really means, you idiot, that courage is stronger than a
battering-machine. Yes, I honour, accept, respect, and revere our lords.
It is the lords who, with her royal Majesty, work to procure and
preserve the advantages of the nation. Their consummate wisdom shines in
intricate junctures. Their precedence over others I wish they had not;
but they have it. What is called principality in Germany, grandeeship in
Spain, is called peerage in England and France. There being a fair show
of reason for considering the world a wretched place enough, heaven felt
where the burden was most galling, and to prove that it knew how to make
happy people, created lords for the satisfaction of philosophers. This
acts as a set-off, and gets heaven out of the scrape, affording it a
decent escape from a false position. The great are great. A peer,
speaking of himself, says we. A peer is a plural. The king qualifies
the peer consanguinei nostri. The peers have made a multitude of wise
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