nd promotion to the highest
class. They observed that more than one of the other great "civil and
religious liberty" families,--the families who in one century plundered
the church to gain the property of the people, and in another century
changed the dynasty to gain the power of the crown,--had their brows
circled with the strawberry leaf. And why should not this distinction be
the high lot also of the descendants of the old gentleman usher of one
of King Henry's plundering vicar-generals? Why not? True it is, that
a grateful sovereign in our days has deemed such distinction the only
reward for half a hundred victories. True it is, that Nelson, after
conquering the Mediterranean, died only a Viscount! But the house of
Marney had risen to high rank; counted themselves ancient nobility; and
turned up their noses at the Pratts and the Smiths, the Jenkinsons and
the Robinsons of our degenerate days; and never had done anything
for the nation or for their honours. And why should they now? It was
unreasonable to expect it. Civil and religious liberty, that had
given them a broad estate and a glittering coronet, to say nothing
of half-a-dozen close seats in parliament, ought clearly to make them
dukes.

But the other great whig families who had obtained this honour, and who
had done something more for it than spoliate their church and betray
their king, set up their backs against this claim of the Egremonts.
The Egremonts had done none of the work of the last hundred years
of political mystification, during which a people without power or
education, had been induced to believe themselves the freest and most
enlightened nation in the world, and had submitted to lavish their blood
and treasure, to see their industry crippled and their labour mortgaged,
in order to maintain an oligarchy, that had neither ancient memories to
soften nor present services to justify their unprecedented usurpation.

How had the Egremonts contributed to this prodigious result? Their
family had furnished none of those artful orators whose bewildering
phrase had fascinated the public intelligence; none of those toilsome
patricians whose assiduity in affairs had convinced their unprivileged
fellow-subjects that government was a science, and administration an
art, which demanded the devotion of a peculiar class in the state for
their fulfilment and pursuit. The Egremonts had never said anything that
was remembered, or done anything that could be recalled