Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/778

756 APPENDIX H one-eighth of one-seventh of one-sixth, or any smaller fraction, of some early Barony by Writ [unheard of for centuries, and which as a matter of fact had never really existed as a heritable dignity) might be vested in them. This most objectionable system of thus raising new men to the Peerage so as to rank above the oldest creations is admirably described by Disraeli in his novel Sybil (1845), where Mr. Hatton, the famous Peerage lawyer of the Inner Temple, explains how he can make a Peer, adding, " The Whigs and I have so deluged the House of Lords that if the Tories come in, there will be no Peers made." — " If the Whigs go out, perhaps they may distribute a coronet or two among themselves, and / shall this year make three." — " You would like to be a Peer. Well, you are really Lord Vavasour, but there is a difficulty in establishing your undoubted right, from the single-writ-of-summons difficulty." — " Your claim on the Barony of Lovel is very good; I could recommend your pursuing it, did not another, more inviting still, present itself. In a word, if you wish to be Lord Bardolph, I will undertake to make you so. . . . will give you precedence over every Peer on the roll, except three {and I made those), and it will not cost you a paltry twenty or thirty thousand pounds."