umanly preposterous as a lord
mayor's footman, and yet it takes sixty guineas, at the least, to make
that poor lick-plate a common laughing-stock?

No, sir; in London we see into, and see through, all sorts of
pretension: the pretension of wealth or rank, whatever kind of quackery
and imposture. When I say _we_, I speak of the vast multitudes forming
the educated, discriminating, and thinking classes of London life. We
pass on to _what_ a man _is_, over _who_ he is, and what he _has_; and,
with one of the most accurate observers of human character and nature to
whom a man of the world ever sat for his portrait--the inimitable La
Bruyere--when offended with the hollow extravagance of vulgar riches, we
exclaim--"_Tu te trompes, Philemon, si avec ce carrosse brillant, ce
grand nombre de coquins qui te suivent, et ces six betes qui te
trainent, tu penses qu'on t'en estime d'avantage: ou ecarte tout cet
attirail qui t'est etranger, pour penetrer jusq'a toi qui n'es qu'un
fat_."

In London, every man is responsible for himself, and his position is the
consequence of his conduct. If a great author, for example, or artist,
or politician, should choose to outrage the established rules of society
in any essential particular, he is neglected and even shunned in his
private, though he may be admired and lauded in his public capacity.
Society marks the line between the _public_ and the _social_ man; and
this line no eminence, not even that of premier minister of England,
will enable a public man to confound.

Wherever you are invited in London to be introduced to a great man, by
any of his parasites or hangers-on, you may be assured that your great
man is no such thing; you may make up your mind to be presented to some
quack, some hollow-skulled fellow, who makes up by little arts, small
tactics, and every variety of puff, for the want of that inherent
excellence which will enable him to stand alone. These gentlemen form
the Cockney school proper of art, literature, the drama, every thing;
and they go about seeking praise, as a goatsucker hunts insects, with
their mouths wide open; they pursue their prey in troops, like Jackals,
and like them, utter at all times a melancholy, complaining howl; they
imagine that the world is in a conspiracy not to admire them, and they
would bring an action against the world if they could. But as that is
impossible, they are content to rail against the world in good set
terms; they are always puff