The  fourth  article  is  particularly  important ;  and  its
provisions  are  liable  to  great  dispute.  The  number  of
deputed  peers  we  do  not  think  sufficient,  with  a  view
to  the  dignity  or  comparative  magnitude  of  Ireland,  or
to  the  whole  amount  of  her  peerage.  Fifty  would  not
have  been  too  large  a  proportion  for  the  representatives
of  her  nobility  in  aparliament  comprehending  the  whole
body  of  English  peers.  The  election  for  life  merits  ap-
probation in  one  respect,  as  it  is  calculated  to  render  the
nominated  peers  more  independent  of  the  crown :  but
it  is  objectionable  on  the  ground  of  its  great  diminu-
tion of  the  chance  of  appointment  to  the  generality  of
the  nobles,  who  will  thus  more  acutely  feel  the  degra-
dation inflicted  by  tlxis  part  of  the  scheme.  It  is,  in-
deed, a  striking  instance  of  inequality  in  the  arrange-
ments, that  so  many  of  the  peers  of  one  country  are  in
a  manner  disfranchised,  while,  in  England,  not  an  in-
dividual nobleman  loses  a  single  privilege.  This  dispa-
rity might  have  been  avoided  by  the  addition  of  all  the

Irish


fcETWEEtf  GRKAT-BlUTAIN  AND  tRlyJ  AND.       509

•

Irish  peers  to  the  British  house  of  lords  ;  but,  as  such
a-  provision  would  have  immoderately  increased  the
number  of  the  assembly,  it  might  have  been  expedient,
and  in  a  relative  point  of  view  not  unjust,  to  subject
some  of  the  peers  of  England  to  a  similar  degradation.—
The  clause  respecting  the  eligibility  of  the  Hibernian
peers  to  a  seat  in  the  house  of  commons  we  do  not  dis-
approve, as  it  affords  some  compensation  for  the  en*
croachment  on  their  hereditary  rights,  without  exciting
any  serious  dread  of  a  confusion  of  rank.
