re, Madam, most painfully mistaken. In this very
chapter we are going to have the moral--why, the whole of the papers
are nothing BUT the moral, setting forth as they do the folly of being a
Snob.

You will remark that in the Country Snobography my poor friend Ponto has
been held up almost exclusively for the public gaze--and why? Because
we went to no other house? Because other families did not welcome us to
their mahogany? No, no. Sir John Hawbuck of the Haws, Sir John Hipsley
of Briary Hall, don't shut the gates of hospitality: of General Sago's
mulligatawny I could speak from experience. And the two old ladies at
Guttlebury, were they nothing? Do you suppose that an agreeable young
dog, who shall be nameless, would not be made welcome? Don't you know
that people are too glad to see ANYBODY in the country?

But those dignified personages do not enter into the scheme of the
present work, and are but minor characters of our Snob drama; just as,
in the play, kings and emperors are not half so important as many humble
persons. The DOGE OF VENICE, for instance, gives way to OTHELLO, who is
but a nigger; and the KING OF FRANCE to FALCONBRIDGE, who is a gentleman
of positively no birth at all. So with the exalted characters above
mentioned. I perfectly well recollect that the claret at Hawbuck's was
not by any means so good as that of Hipsley's, while, on the contrary,
some white hermitage at the Haws (by the way, the butler only gave
me half a glass each time) was supernacular. And I remember the
conversations. O Madam, Madam, how stupid they were! The subsoil
ploughing; the pheasants and poaching; the row about the representation
of the county; the Earl of Mangelwurzelshire being at variance with his
relative and nominee, the Honourable Marmaduke Tomnoddy; all these I
could put down, had I a mind to violate the confidence of private
life; and a great deal of conversation about the weather, the
Mangelwurzelshire Hunt, new manures, and eating and drinking, of course.

But CUI BONO? In these perfectly stupid and honourable families there
is not that Snobbishness which it is our purpose to expose. An ox is an
ox--a great hulking, fat-sided, bellowing, munching Beef. He ruminates
according to his nature, and consumes his destined portion of turnips or
oilcake, until the time comes for his disappearance from the pastures,
to be succeeded by other deep-lunged and fat-ribbed animals. Perhaps
we do not respect an ox. We rather a