ty above the heads of the people. The wisest
and the most independent of the English Parliaments declared the
thing useless. [79] Peers are usually persons of pride without dignity,
of lofty pretensions with low propensities. They invariably bear
towards one another a constrained familiarity or frigid courtesy,
while to their huntsmen and their prickers, their chaplains and
their cooks, (or indeed any other man's,) they display unequivocal
signs of ingenuous cordiality.

[Footnote 79: Vol. iv. p. 400.]

How many do you imagine of our nobility are not bastards or sons of
bastards? [80]

[Footnote 80: Vol. iv. p. 273.]

_North_.--You have now settled the Peers. The Baronets come next in
order.

_Landor_.--Baronets are prouder than any thing we see on this side
of the Dardanelles, excepting the proctors of universities, and the
vergers of cathedrals; and their pride is kept in eternal agitation,
both from what is above them and what is below. Gentlemen of any
standing (like Walter Savage Landor, of Warwick Castle, and Lantony
Abbey in Wales,) are apt to investigate their claims a little too
minutely, and nobility has neither bench nor joint-stool for them in
the vestibule. During the whole course of your life, have you ever
seen one among this, our King James's breed of curs, that either did
not curl himself up and lie snug and warm in the lowest company, [81]
or slaver and whimper in fretful quest of the highest.

[Footnote 81: Vol. iv. p. 400.]

_North_.--But you allow the English people to be a great people.

_Landor_.--I allow them to be a nation of great fools. [82]
In England, if you write dwarf on the back of a giant, he will go
for a dwarf.

[Footnote 82: Vol. iii. p. 135.]

_North_.--I perceive; some wag has been chalking your back in that
fashion. Why don't you label your breast with the word giant?
Perhaps you would then pass for one.

_Landor_.--I have so labelled it, but in vain.

_North_.--Yet we have seen some great men, besides yourself,
Mr. Landor, in our own day. Some great military commanders, for
example; and, as a particular instance, Wellington.

_Landor_.--It cannot be dissembled that all the victories of the
English, in the last fifty years, have been gained by the high
courage and steady discipline of the soldier, [83] and the most
remarkable where the prudence and skill of the commander were
altogether wanting.

[Footnote 83: Vol. ii. p 214.]

_North_.--Ay, that was a terribl