sions
have, to a certain degree, been exercised before. Do not cry out at this
and say it is no discovery! I say it IS a discovery. It is a discovery
if I show you--a gentleman--a profession which you may exercise without
derogation, or loss of standing, with certain profit, nay, possibly with
honor, and of which, until the reading of this present page, you never
thought but as of a calling beneath your rank and quite below your
reach. Sir, I do not mean to say that I create a profession. I cannot
create gold; but if, when discovered, I find the means of putting it in
your pocket, do I or do I not deserve credit?

I see you sneer contemptuously when I mention to you the word
AUCTIONEER. "Is this all," you say, "that this fellow brags and
prates about? An auctioneer forsooth! he might as well have 'invented'
chimney-sweeping!"

No such thing. A little boy of seven, be he ever so low of birth, can do
this as well as you. Do you suppose that little stolen Master
Montague made a better sweeper than the lowest-bred chummy that yearly
commemorates his release? No, sir. And he might have been ever so much
a genius or gentleman, and not have been able to make his trade
respectable.

But all such trades as can be rendered decent the aristocracy has
adopted one by one. At first they followed the profession of arms,
flouting all others as unworthy, and thinking it ungentlemanlike to
know how to read or write. They did not go into the church in very early
days, till the money to be got from the church was strong enough to
tempt them. It is but of later years that they have condescended to
go to the bar, and since the same time only that we see some of them
following trades. I know an English lord's son, who is, or was, a
wine-merchant (he may have been a bankrupt for what I know). As for
bankers, several partners in banking-houses have four balls to their
coronets, and I have no doubt that another sort of banking, viz, that
practised by gentlemen who lend small sums of money upon deposited
securities, will be one day followed by the noble order, so that they
may have four balls on their coronets and carriages, and three in front
of their shops.

Yes, the nobles come peoplewards as the people, on the other hand, rise
and mingle with the nobles. With the plebs, of course, Fitz-Boodle, in
whose veins flows the blood of a thousand kings, can have nothing to do;
but, watching the progress of the world, 'tis impossible to deny that