handsome and hideous, than would have colonized Ulster ten times over
and left a residue for Nova Scotia. Sir Pitt Crawley and Sir Barnes
Newcome will live as long as English novels are read, and I hope that
dull forgetfulness will never seize as its prey Sir Alfred Mogyns Smyth
de Mogyns, who was born Alfred Smith Muggins, but traced a descent from
Hogyn Mogyn of the Hundred Beeves, and took for his motto "Ung Roy ung
Mogyns." His pedigree is drawn in the seventh chapter of the _Book of
Snobs_, and is imitated with great fidelity on more than one page of
Burke's Peerage.

An eye closely intent upon the lesser beauties of the natural world will
find a very engaging specimen of the genus Baronet in Sir Barnet
Skettles, who was so kind to Paul Dombey and so angry with poor Mr.
Baps. Sir Leicester Dedlock is on a larger scale--in fact, almost too
"fine and large" for life. But I recall a fleeting vision of perfect
loveliness among Miss Monflathers's pupils--"a baronet's daughter who by
some extraordinary reversal of the laws of Nature was not only plain in
feature but dull in intellect."

So far we have spoken only of hereditary honours; but our review would
be singularly incomplete if it excluded those which are purely personal.
Of these, of course, incomparably the highest is the Order of the
Garter, and its most characteristic glory is that, in Lord Melbourne's
phrase, "there is no d----d nonsense of merit about it." The Emperor of
Lilliput rewarded his courtiers with three fine silken threads, one of
which was blue, one green, and one red. The Emperor held a stick
horizontally, and the candidates crept under it, backwards and forwards,
several times. Whoever showed the most agility in creeping was rewarded
with the blue thread.

Let us hope that the methods of chivalry have undergone some
modification since the days of Queen Anne, and that the Blue Ribbon of
the Garter, which ranks with the Golden Fleece and makes its wearer a
comrade of all the crowned heads of Europe, is attained by arts more
dignified than those which awoke the picturesque satire of Dean Swift.
But I do not feel sure about it.

Great is the charm of a personal decoration. Byron wrote:

"Ye stars, that are the poetry of heaven."

"A stupid line," says Mr. St. Barbe in _Endymion_; "he should have
written, 'Ye stars, that are the poetry of dress.'" North of the Tweed
the green thread of Swift's imagination--"the most ancient and most
noble