We do not recollect
any former instance in which a Peer has stood forth as the libeller of
his Sovereign. If he disapproves the measures of his Ministers, the
House of Parliament, in which he has an hereditary right to sit, is the
place where his opinions may with propriety be uttered. If he thinks he
can avert any danger to his country by a personal conference with his
Sovereign, he has a right to demand it. The Peers are the natural
advisers of the Crown, but the Constitution which has granted them such
extraordinary privileges, makes it doubly criminal in them to attack the
authority from which it is derived, and to insult the power which it is
their peculiar province to uphold and protect. What then must we think
of the foolish vanity, or the bad taste of a titled Poet, who is the
first to proclaim himself the Author of a Libel, because he is fearful
it will not be sufficiently read without his avowal. We perfectly
remember having read the verses in question a year ago; but we could not
then suppose them the offspring of patrician bile, nor should we now
believe it without the Author's special authority. It seems by some late
quotations from his Lordship's works, which have been rescued from that
oblivion to which they were hastening with a rapid step, by one of our
co-equals, that this peerless Peer has already gone through a complete
course of private ingratitude. The inimitable Hogarth has traced the
gradual workings of an unfeeling heart in his progress of cruelty.
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