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centuries, the island of Great Britain was inhabited by two sorts of people, some born, but the much greater number unborn.-I therefore take with pleasure this opportunity of explaining and clearing up this difficulty to my remotest successors in the republic of letters, by giving them the true meaning of the several expressions of great birth, noble birth, and no birth at all.

Great and illustrious birth is ascertained and authenticated by a pedigree carefully preserved in the family, which takes at least an hour's time to unroll, and when unrolled discloses twenty marriages of valiant and puissant Geoffreys and Hildebrands, with as many chaste and pious Blaunches and Mauds, before the conquest, not without here and there a dash of the Plantagencts. But if unfortunately the insolent worms should have devoured the pedigree, as well as the persons of the illustrious family, that defect may be supplied by the ancient records of the herald's office, that inestimable repository of good sense and useful knowledge. If this great birth is graced with a peerage, so much the better; but if not, it is no great matter; for being so solid a good in itself, it wants no borrowed advantage, and is unquestionably the most pleasing sentiment that a truly generous mind is capable of feeling.

Noble birth implies only a peerage in the family. Ancestors are by no means necessary for this kind of birth: the patent is the midwife, and the very first descent is noble.

Birth,

Birth, singly, and without an epithet, extends, I cannot positively say how far, but negatively it stops where useful arts and industry begin. Merchants, tradesmen, yeomen, farmers, and ploughmen, are not born, or at least in so mean a way, as not to deserve that name; and it is perhaps for that reason that their mothers are said to be delivered, rather than brought to bed of them. But baronets, knights, and squires have the honour of being born.

WORLD.

No. 114.

THERE are a set of men in all the states of Europe who assume from their infancy a pre-eminence independent of their moral character. The attention paid them from the moment of their birth, gives them the idea that they are formed for command; they soon learn to distinguish themselves as a distinct species, and being secure of a certain rank and station, take no pains to make themselves worthy of it. To this institution we owe so many indifferent ministers, ignorant magistrates, and bad generals

ABBE RAYNAL.

Hist. of European Settlements, b. i.

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He is but a poor observer, who has not seen that the generality of peers, far from supporting themselves in a state of independent greatness, are but too apt to fall into an oblivion of their proper dignity, and to run headlong into an abject servitude.

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Is there a lord that knows a cheerful noon, Without a fidler, flatterer, or buffoon? Whose table wit, or modest merit share, Unelbow'd by a gamester, pimp, or player?

POPE. Moral Epistles, epist. iii

SEVERAL of the great, I am told, understand as much of farriery as their grooms; and a horse, with any share of merit, can never want a patron among the nobility.

GOLDSMITH.

Citizen of the World, vol. ii. let. lxxxvi,

OUR young nobility are bred from their childhood in idleness and luxury. As soon as their years will permit, they consume their vigour, and contract odious diseases among lewd females; and when their fortunes are almost ruined, they marry some woman of mean birth, disagreeable person, and unsound constitution, merely for the sake of money, whom they hate and despise. The pro ductions of such marriages are generally scrophulous, ricketty, or deformed children; by which means the family seldom continues above three generations, unless the wife takes care to provide a healthy father among her neighbours or domestics, in order to improve and continue the breed. A weak diseased body, a meagre countenance, and sallow complexion, are the true marks of noble blood; and a healthy robust appearance is so disgraceful in a man of quality, that the world concludes his father to have been a groom or a coach

man.

man. The imperfections of his mind are parallel with those of his body, being a composition of spleen, dullness, ignorance, caprice, sensuality, and pride.

Without the consent of this illustrious body [of nobles] no law can be enacted, repealed, or altered; and these nobles have likewise the decision of all our possessions without appeal.

SWIFT.

Gulliver's Travels, part. iii. ch. vi.

LET states that aim at greatness take heed how their nobility and gentry do multiply too fast for that maketh the common subject grow to be a peasant and base swain, driven out of heart, and in effect but a gentleman's labourer.

LORD BACON. Works, vol. iii. p. 343,

PRINCES and lords may flourish or may fade, A breath can make them as a breath has made ; But a bold peasantry, a nation's pride,

When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.

GGLDSMITH.
Deserted Village.

Ir is surprising what an influence titles shall have upon the mind, even though these titles be of our own making. Like children, we dress up the puppets in finery, and then stand in astonishment at the plastic wonder. I have been told of a ratcatcher here, who strolled for a long time about the villages near town, without finding any employment. At last, however, he thought proper

to

to take the title of his majesty's rat-catcher in ordinary, and this succeeded beyond his expectations: when it was known that he caught rats at court, all were ready to give him countenance and employ

ment.

GOLDSMITH.

Citizen of the World, vol. ii. let. xcii.

THE pitiful humiliations of the gentlemen you are now describing, puts me in mind of a custom among the Tartars of Koreki.* The Russians who trade with them, carry thither a kind of mushrooms, which they exchange for furs of squirrels, ermins, sables, and foxes. These mushrooms the rich

Tartars lay up in large quantities for the winter; and when a nobleman makes a mushroom feast, all the neighbours around are invited. The mushrooms are prepared by boiling; by which the water acquires an intoxicating quality, and is a sort of drink which the Tartars prize beyond all other. When the nobility and ladies are assembled, and the ceremonies usual between people of distinction over, the mushroom broth goes freely round; they laugh, talk double entendre, grow fuddled, and become excellent company. The poorer sort, who love mushroom broth to distraction, as well as the rich, but cannot afford it. at the first hand, post themselves, on these occasions,

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Van Stralenberg, a writer of credit, gives the same account of this people. Vid. an Hist. Geograph. description of the north-eastern parts of Europe and Asia, p. 397.

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