how difficult it is even for great men to escape
from being Snobs. It is very well for the reader, whose fine feelings
are disgusted by the assertion that Kings, Princes, Lords, are Snobs, to
say 'You are confessedly a Snob yourself. In professing to depict Snobs,
it is only your own ugly mug which you are copying with a Narcissus-like
conceit and fatuity.' But I shall pardon this explosion of ill-temper
on the part of my constant reader, reflecting upon the misfortune of his
birth and country. It is impossible for ANY Briton, perhaps, not to be a
Snob in some degree. If people can be convinced of this fact, an immense
point is gained, surely. If I have pointed out the disease, let us hope
that other scientific characters may discover the remedy.

If you, who are a person of the middle ranks of life, are a Snob,--you
whom nobody flatters particularly; you who have no toadies; you whom no
cringing flunkeys or shopmen bow out of doors; you whom the policeman
tells to move on; you who are jostled in the crowd of this world, and
amongst the Snobs our brethren: consider how much harder it is for a man
to escape who has not your advantages, and is all his life long subject
to adulation; the butt of meanness; consider how difficult it is for the
Snobs' idol not to be a Snob.

As I was discoursing with my friend Eugenio in this impressive way, Lord
Buckram passed us, the son of the Marquis of Bagwig, and knocked at
the door of the family mansion in Red Lion Square. His noble father and
mother occupied, as everybody knows, distinguished posts in the
Courts of late Sovereigns. The Marquis was Lord of the Pantry, and her
Ladyship, Lady of the Powder Closet to Queen Charlotte. Buck (as I
call him, for we are very familiar) gave me a nod as he passed, and
I proceeded to show Eugenio how it was impossible that this nobleman
should not be one of ourselves, having been practised upon by Snobs all
his life.

His parents resolved to give him a public education, and sent him to
school at the earliest possible period. The Reverend Otto Rose, D.D.,
Principal of the Preparatory Academy for young noblemen and gentlemen,
Richmond Lodge, took this little Lord in hand, and fell down and
worshipped him. He always introduced him to fathers and mothers who
came to visit their children at the school. He referred with pride and
pleasure to the most noble the Marquis of Bagwig, as one of the kind
friends and patrons of his Seminary. He made Lord Bu