"While this unfavorable change was taking place in the sovereign and ministers of the country, a change equally unfavorable was being effected in the second branch of the imperial legislature. Until the reign of George III. the House of Lords was decidedly superior to the House of Commons in the liberality and general accomplishments of its members. It is true that in both Houses there prevailed a spirit which must be called narrow and superstitious if tried by the larger standard of the present age.
"The superiority of the Upper House over the Lower was, on the whole, steadily maintained during the reign of George II., the ministers not being anxious to strengthen the High Church party in the Lords, and the King himself so rarely suggesting fresh creations as to cause a belief that he particularly disliked increasing their numbers. It was reserved for George III., by an unsparing use of his prerogative, entirely to change the character of the Upper House, and thus lay the foundation for that disrepute into which, since then, the peers have been constantly falling. The creations he made were numerous beyond all precedent, their object evidently being to neutralize the liberal spirit hitherto prevailing, and thus turn the House of Lords into an engine for resisting the popular wishes, and stopping the progress of reform. How completely this plan succeeded is well known to the readers of our history; indeed, it was sure to be successful considering the character of the men who were promoted. They consisted almost entirely of two classes: of country gentlemen, remarkable for nothing but their wealth, and the number of votes their wealth enabled them to control; and of mere lawyers, who had risen to judicial appointments partly from their professional learning, but chiefly from the zeal with which they repressed the popular liberties, and favored the royal prerogative.
"That this is no exaggerated description may be ascertained by any one who will consult the lists of the new-peers made by George III.
"Here and there we find an eminent man, whose public services were so notorious that it was impossible to avoid rewarding them; but, putting aside those who were in a manner forced upon the sovereign, it would be idle to deny that the remainder, and of course the overwhelming majority, were marked by a narrowness and illiberality of sentiment which, more than anything else, brought the whole order into contempt. No great thinkers, no great writers, no great orators, no great statesmen, none of the true nobility of the land, were to be found among the spurious nobles created by George III."