25 FEBRUARY 1911, Page 13

AN HISTORIC PARALLEL.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Srn,—I think your readers may be interested by the following quotation from Dryden's " Absalom and Achitophel," which seems to me singularly descriptive of the present position of the House of Lords. David may very well stand for the Chancellor of the Exchequer

" Thus, worn or weakened, well or ill content, Submit they must to David's government ; Impoverished and deprived of all command, Their taxes doubled as they lost their land; And—what was harder yet to flesh and blood— Their gods disgraced, and burnt like common wood."

am, Sir, &c.,