men, prominent;
but the set is nothing the greater for them: no man sheds any lustre
upon his fellows, nor is a briefless barrister a whit more thought of
because he and Lyndhurst are of the same profession.

Take a look at other places: in money-getting places, you find society
following, like so many dogs, the aristocracy of 'Change: every man
knows the worth of every other man, that is to say, _what_ he is worth.

A good man, elsewhere a relative term, is _there_ a man good for _so_
much; hats are elevated and bodies depressed upon a scale of ten
thousand pounds to an inch; "I hope you are well," from one of the
aristocracy of these places is always translated to mean, "I hope you
are solvent," and "how d'ye do?" from another, is equivalent to "doing a
bill."

Go abroad, to Rome for example--You are smothered beneath the petticoats
of an ecclesiastical aristocracy. Go to the northern courts of
Europe--You are ill-received, or perhaps not received at all, save in
military uniform; the aristocracy of the epaulet meets you at every
turn, and if you are not at least an ensign of militia, you are nothing.
Make your way into Germany--What do you find there? an aristocracy of
functionaries, mobs of nobodies living upon everybodies; from Herr Von,
Aulic councillor, and Frau Von, Aulic councilloress, down to Herr Von,
crossing-sweeper, and Frau Von, crossing-sweeperess--for the women there
must be _better_-half even in their titles--you find society led, or, to
speak more correctly, society _consisting_ of functionaries, and they,
every office son of them, and their wives--nay, their very curs--alike
insolent and dependent. "Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart, see they bark at
_me_!" There, to get into society, you must first get into a place: you
must contrive to be the _servant_ of the public before you are permitted
to be the _master_: you must be paid by, before you are in a condition
to despise, the _canaille_.

Passing Holland and Belgium as more akin to the genius of the English
people, as respects the supremacy of honest industry, its independent
exercise, and the comparative insignificance of aristocracies,
conventionally so called, we come to FRANCE: there we find a provincial
and a Parisian aristocracy--the former a servile mob of placemen, one in
fifty, at least, of the whole population; and the latter--oh! my poor
head, what a _clanjaffrey_ of _journalistes, feuilletonistes, artistes_,
dramatists, novelists, _vaud