, most of them
would swear, and get drunk at their banquets; but their profanity was
conventional rather than blasphemous, and they seldom got drunk till
late in the evening, and then on wines older than their children, from
the most famous vineyards of Europe. During the day they were able to
attend to business, if they had any, and seldom drank anything stronger
than ale and beer. Their breakfasts were light and their lunches simple.
Living much in the open air, and fond of the pleasures of the chase,
they were generally healthy and robust. The prevailing disease which
crippled them was gout; but this was owing to champagne and burgundy
rather than to brandy and turtle-soups, for at that time no Englishman
of rank dreamed that he could dine without wine. William Pitt, it is
said, found less than three bottles insufficient for his dinner, when he
had been working hard.

Among them all there was great outward reverence for the Church, and few
missed its services on Sundays, or failed to attend family prayers in
their private chapels as conducted by their chaplains, among whom
probably not a Dissenter could be found in the whole realm. Both
Catholics and Dissenters were alike held in scornful contempt or
indifference, and had inferior social rank. On the whole, these
aristocrats were a decorous class of men, though narrow, bigoted,
reserved, and proud, devoted to pleasure, idle, extravagant, and callous
to the wrongs and miseries of the poor. They did not insult the people
by arrogance or contumely, like the old Roman nobles; but they were not
united to them by any other ties than such as a master would feel for
his slaves; and as slaves are obsequious to their masters, and sometimes
loyal, so the humbler classes (especially in the country) worshipped the
ground on which these magnates walked. "How courteous the nobles are!"
said a wealthy plebeian manufacturer to me once, at Manchester. "I was
to show my mill to Lord Ducie, and as my carriage drove up I was about
to mount the box with the coachman, but my lord most kindly told me
to jump in."

So much for the highest class of all in England, about the year 1815.
Suppose the attention of the traveller were now turned to the
legislative halls, in which public affairs were discussed, particularly
to the House of Commons, supposed to represent the nation. He would have
seen five or six hundred men, in plain attire, with their hats on,
listless and inattentive, except when