The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.... He was fixed in the house of lords,... that hospital of incurables, and his retreat to popularity was cut off; for the confidence of the public, when once great and once lost, is never to be regained.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that "the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look a...t it."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Twenty thousand thieves landed at Hastings. These founders of the House of Lords were greedy and ferocious dragoons, sons of greed...y and ferocious pirates. They were all alike, they took everything they could carry, they burned, harried, violated, tortured, and killed until everything English was brought to the verge of ruin. Such, however, is the illusion of antiquity and wealth, that decent and dignified men now existing boast their descent from these filthy thieves, who showed a far juster conviction of their own merits, by assuming for their types the swine, goat, jackal, leopard, wolf, and snake, which they severally resembled.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are fortunate to have inherited an institution (the House of Lords) which we certainly should never have had the intelligence t...o create. We might have been landed with something like the American Senate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The House of Lords, architecturally, is a magnificent room, and the dignity, quiet, and repose of the scene made me unwillingly ac...knowledge that the Senate of the United States might possibly improve its manners. Perhaps in our desire for simplicity, absence of title, or badge of office we may have thrown over too much.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The law before us, my lords, seems to be the effect of that practice of which it is intended likewise to be the cause, and to be d...ictated by the liquor of which it so effectually promotes the use; for surely it never before was conceived by any man entrusted with the administration of public affairs, to raise taxes by the destruction of the people.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Are we aware of our obligations to a mob? It is the mob that labour in your fields and serve in your houses--that man your navy, a...nd recruit your army--that have enabled you to defy the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob; but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »