But were it a peerage, which has some essential privileges
and splendours annexed to it, to make it desirable to some men, I
would not enter into conditions for it. Titles at best," added he,
"are but shadows; and he that has the substance should be above
valuing them; for who that has the whole bird, would pride himself
upon a single feather?"
"But," said my lady, "although I acknowledge that the institution is
of late date, yet, as abroad, as well as at home, it is regarded as
a title of dignity, and the best families among the gentry
are supposed to be distinguished by it, I should wish you to
accept of it. And as to citizens who have it, they are not many; and
some of this class of people, or their immediate descendants, have
bought themselves into the peerage itself of the one kingdom or the
other."
[Footnote 1: This order was become so scandalously common in France,
that, to order to suppress it, the hangman was vested with the ensigns
of it, which effectually abolished it.]
"As to what it is looked upon abroad," said Mr. B., "this is of no
weight at all; for when an Englishman travels, be he of what degree
he will, if he has an equipage, and squanders his money away, he is a
lord of course with foreigners: and therefore Sir Such-a-one is rather
a diminution to him, as it gives him a lower title than his vanity
would perhaps make him aspire to be thought in the possession
of.
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