Everybody knows that titles and dignities are not only integral parts of
the person, but its most distinctive attributes. When Earl Grey said he
would stand or fall by his order, it was as if he had said, he would
stand or fall by himself. Take a noble lord, and, if the process be
possible, abstract him mentally from his titles and privileges, and
offer the two lots separately for sale in the market, who would not buy
the latter if they could? who would, in most cases, even bid for the
first? It is the title that is asked everywhere to dinner; it is the
title receives all the bows and prostrations, that gets the nomination
to so many places, that commands the regiments and ships-of-war, and
"robs the Exchequer with unwashed hands." The man who owns it, may be
what he can, an honest man, or a scoundrel, a mushroom or an Howard, a
scholar, or a brute, a wit or a blockhead, _c'est égal_. Proud, haughty,
highdaring, free England, is not this true to the letter?--_New Monthly
Magazine_.
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At Thetford, not far from his beloved Newmarket, James I. was threatened
with an action of trespass for following his game over a farmer's
corn.--_Quarterly Review_.
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