radically still more prolific seeds of evil than similar institutions in other countries. In England, hereditary titles are held by temporal lords, or the laity alone, and are transmissible under the restrictions of the law only to the eldest sons, or next in lineal descent. If some peerages are spiritual, these are attached merely as official adjuncts and honours to the select few whose piety and learning “the king delights to honour.” As the guardians of religion and overseers of God’s household, they are certainly entitled to some distinction. But the English Bishops are not an order of hereditary hierarchy pretending to so much importance on the score of birth-right. Even the feudal prelacies of the dark ages were exempt from this abuse. The bishops of old popish days, though at the same time both pastors and warriors, and perhaps more dexterous as sons of Mars than as sons of the Church, were elected officers and vassals of the crown. They were not a race of hereditary priests uniting the temporal and spiritual swords under the same grasp, or simultaneously admonishing and coercing their flocks and villeins—the one to cultivate the peaceful dispositions of the Christian, the other to arm for battle and slaughter.
The Kuls of which we are speaking, are, however, temporal honours attached to hereditary spiritual families, and although they are not connected with the military vassalage of the feudal bishops, yet since villages and districts were settled upon them, they contained the germs of every description of tyranny, which in a more warlike country and under a longer continuance of its political independence, might have grown into full maturity. Among the Brahmins of Bengal, again, a Kulinhood descends to all male children lawfully begotten, and as these worthies do not scruple to multiply their wives to any extent, the propagation of their ranks surpasses all calculation. The country has accordingly been overrun with these hungry dignitaries, and has groaned under the burden of supporting and maintaining them. Even at the present day some unbroken Kulins will hardly condescend to work for their livelihood. As Brahmins they consider themselves entitled to all the good things which the country can produce, and as dignitaries they fancy they have a right to fleece the priests themselves. The disastrous consequences of such freaks, originally encouraged by a crowned head, and always unopposed by the populace, need no illustration in detail.
Neither are the Kulinhoods subject to forfeiture for personal delinquencies. Even the spiritual baronies of the middle ages have sometimes been subject to deprivations and forfeitures. But no criminality can affect the family honours of the Kulin
