In honour of the New Years Honours

What is a Peer?

What is a peer? A useless thing;
A costly toy, to please a king;
A bauble near a throne;
A lump of animated clay;
A gaudy pageant of a day;
An incubus; a drone!

What is a peer? A nation’s curse -
A pauper on the public purse;
Corruption’s own jackal:
A haughty, domineering blade;
A cuckold at a masquerade;
A dandy at a ball.

Ye butterflies, whom kings create;
Ye caterpillars of the state;

Now that your time is near!
This moral learn from nature’s plan,
That in creation God made man;
But never made a peer.

Northern Star 7 May 1842