lower his character by
entering this House as Member for the University of Oxford? Did Sir
John Copley lower his character by entering this House as Member for the
University of Cambridge? But the universities, you say, are constituent
bodies of a very peculiar kind. Be it so. Then, by your own admission,
there are a few seats in this House which eminent judges have filled
and may fill without any unseemly condescension. But it would be most
unjust, and in me, especially, most ungrateful, to compliment the
universities at the expense of other constituent bodies. I am one of
many members who know by experience that a generosity and a delicacy
of sentiment which would do honour to any seat of learning may be found
among the ten pound householders of our great cities. And, Sir, as to
the counties, need we look further than to your chair? It is of as much
importance that you should punctiliously preserve your dignity as that
the Master of the Rolls should punctiliously preserve his dignity.
If you had, at the last election, done anything inconsistent with
the integrity, with the gravity, with the suavity of temper which so
eminently qualify you to preside over our deliberations, your public
usefulness would have been seriously diminished. But the great county
which does itself honour by sending you to the House required from you
nothing unbecoming your character, and would have felt itself degraded
by your degradation. And what reason is there to doubt that other
constituent bodies would act as justly and considerately towards a judge
distinguished by uprightness and ability as Hampshire has acted towards
you?

One very futile argument only remains to be noticed. It is said that
we ought to be consistent; and that, having turned the Judge of the
Admiralty out of the House, we ought to send the Master of the Rolls
after him. I admit, Sir, that our system is at present very anomalous.
But it is better that a system should be anomalous than that it should
be uniformly and consistently bad. You have entered on a wrong course.
My advice is first that you stop, and secondly that you retrace your
steps. The time is not far distant when it will be necessary for us to
revise the constitution of this House. On that occasion, it will be
part of our duty to reconsider the rule which determines what
public functionaries shall be admitted to sit here, and what public
functionaries shall be excluded. That rule is, I must say, singularly