es I. was a Snob, and a Scotch Snob, than which the
world contains no more offensive creature. He appears to have had not
one of the good qualities of a man--neither courage, nor generosity,
nor honesty, nor brains; but read what the great Divines and Doctors of
England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not
a Snob; whilst Louis XIV., his old squaretoes of a contemporary,--the
great worshipper of Bigwiggery--has always struck me as a most undoubted
and Royal Snob.

I will not, however, take instances from our own country of Royal Snobs,
but refer to a neighbouring kingdom, that of Brentford--and its monarch,
the late great and lamented Gorgius IV. With the same humility with
which the footmen at the 'King's Arms' gave way before the Plush Royal,
the aristocracy of the Brentford nation bent down and truckled before
Gorgius, and proclaimed him the first gentleman in Europe. And it's a
wonder to think what is the gentlefolks' opinion of a gentleman, when
they gave Gorgius such a title.

What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be
generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities,
to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman
to be a loyal son, a true husband, and honest father? Ought his life to
be decent--his bills to be paid--his tastes to be high and elegant--his
aims in life lofty and noble? In a word, ought not the Biography of a
First Gentleman in Europe to be of such a nature that it might be read
in Young Ladies' Schools with advantage, and studied with profit in the
Seminaries of Young Gentlemen? I put this question to all instructors
of youth--to Mrs. Ellis and the Women of England; to all schoolmasters,
from Doctor Hawtrey down to Mr. Squeers. I conjure up before me an awful
tribunal of youth and innocence, attended by its venerable instructors
(like the ten thousand red-cheeked charity-children in Saint Paul's),
sitting in judgment, and Gorgius pleading his cause in the midst. Out of
Court, out of Court, fat old Florizel! Beadles, turn out that bloated,
pimple-faced man!--If Gorgius MUST have a statue in the new Palace which
the Brentford nation is building, it ought to be set up in the Flunkeys'
Hall. He should be represented cutting out a coat, in which art he is
said to have excelled. He also invented Maraschino punch, a shoe-buckle
(this was in the vigour of his youth, and the prime force of his
invention), an