I was in the UTexas library, looking up some info about the heraldic arms of Jane Austen, when by chance I happened to notice a book on a neighboring shelf, "A Peerage for the People" by William Carpenter, apparently first published in 1835, but this edition published 1841 with updates. It's an account of each noble family from the point of view of reforming/"radical" politics, pointing out how much money each peer (or his relatives) gets from public money in the form of honorary offices and sinecures, church offices, state pensions, and various (mis)appropriations of public property; it also includes accounts of scandals and malfeasances involving noble families (though Carpenter claims not to repeat "private" scandal merely for the sake of scandal, when this has no bearing on the "public character" of a politically-active nobleman), and notes on which peers voted against the parliamentary Reform bill of 1832, the later municipal reform bill, the abolition of slavery, Irish/Catholic reform (the Orange Order comes in for some very severe comments), etc. etc.

Some quotes:

"The history of the Peerage is a history of intrigue, profligacy, corruption, jobbing, and peculation. Repulsive as the Spirit of Aristocracy has ever been, it is not to be doubted that it has, in many features, largely degenerated over the last two hundred years. It did at one time exhibit qualities, which, if they could not command respect or esteem, did not fail to excite wonder and admiration. But its high chivalry has degenerated into pure chicanery; its lofty courage has degenerated into low cunning; its disregard of mere wealth has given way to a grinding and huckstering spirit of money-getting and money keeping; its ambition for personal prowess has been transmuted into a peddling and pettifogging appetite for the vulgar means and materials to maintain its mischievous eminence."

Earl Poulett: "His Lordship's character may be summed up in three words -- he is a fox-hunting Tory."

Earl Spencer: "Lord Spencer is one of those indifferently good sort of people of whom it is very difficult to speak. When we remember the anecdote of the Earl of Arundel's reply to one of the noble Earl's ancestors, who had been speaking of Magna Charta, &c, -- ``My lord, my lord, when these things were doing, your ancestors were keeping sheep!'' -- we look at Lord Spencer, and sigh that they ever left so innocent an employment."

Earl of Jersey: "He is a man of but feeble abilities, but what he lacks in power, his lady makes up for in intrigue. The Countess of Jersey has long been before the public as a leadereither in fashion or politics."