ment impairs the accordance of Parliament with public opinion. No
doubt the direct descendants and collateral relatives of noble families
supply members to Parliament in far greater proportion than is
warranted by the number of such families in comparison with the whole
nation. But I do not believe that these families have the least
corporate character, or any common opinions, different from others of
the landed gentry. They have the opinions of the propertied rank in
which they were born. The English aristocracy have never been a caste
apart, and are not a caste apart now. They would keep up nothing that
other landed gentlemen would not. And if any landed gentlemen are to be
sent to the House of Commons, it is desirable that many should be men
of some rank. As long as we keep up a double set of institutions--one
dignified and intended to impress the many, the other efficient and
intended to govern the many--we should take care that the two match
nicely, and hide where the one begins and where the other ends. This is
in part effected by conceding some subordinate power to the august part
of our polity, but it is equally aided by keeping an aristocratic
element in the useful part of our polity. In truth, the deferential
instinct secures both. Aristocracy is a power in the "constituencies".
A man who is an honourable or a baronet, or better yet, perhaps, a real
earl, though Irish, is coveted by half the electing bodies; and
caeteris paribus, a manufacturer's son has no chance with him. The
reality of the deferential feeling in the community is tested by the
actual election of the class deferred to, where there is a large free
choice betwixt it and others.

Subject therefore to the two minor, but still not inconsiderable,
defects I have named, Parliament conforms itself accurately enough,
both as a chooser of executives and as a legislature, to the formed
opinion of the country. Similarly, and subject to the same exceptions,
it expresses the nation's opinion in words well, when it happens that
words, not laws, are wanted. On foreign matters, where we cannot
legislate, whatever the English nation thinks, or thinks it thinks, as
to the critical events of the world, whether in Denmark, in Italy, or
America, and no matter whether it thinks wisely or unwisely, that same
something, wise or unwise, will be thoroughly well said in Parliament.
The lyrical function of Parliament, if I may use such a phrase, is well
done; it pours ou