CHAPTER I

A proper tenderness for the Peerage will continue to pass current the
illustrious gentleman who was inflamed by Cupid's darts to espouse the
milkmaid, or dairymaid, under his ballad title of Duke of Dewlap: nor
was it the smallest of the services rendered him by Beau Beamish, that
he clapped the name upon her rustic Grace, the young duchess, the very
first day of her arrival at the Wells. This happy inspiration of a wit
never failing at a pinch has rescued one of our princeliest houses from
the assaults of the vulgar, who are ever too rejoiced to bespatter and
disfigure a brilliant coat-of-arms; insomuch that the ballad, to which
we are indebted for the narrative of the meeting and marriage of the
ducal pair, speaks of Dewlap in good faith--

O the ninth Duke of Dewlap I am, Susie dear!

without a hint of a domino title. So likewise the pictorial historian is
merry over 'Dewlap alliances' in his description of the society of that
period. He has read the ballad, but disregarded the memoirs of the beau.
Writers of pretension would seem to have an animus against individuals
of the character of Mr. Beamish. They will treat of the habits and
manners of highwaymen, and quote obscure broadsheets and songs of the
people to colour their story, yet decline to bestow more than a passing
remark upon our domestic kings: because they are not hereditary, we
may suppose. The ballad of 'The Duke and the Dairymaid,' ascribed with
questionable authority to the pen of Mr. Beamish himself in a freak
of his gaiety, was once popular enough to provoke the moralist to
animadversions upon an order of composition that 'tempted every bouncing
country lass to sidle an eye in a blowsy cheek' in expectation of a
coronet for her pains--and a wet ditch as the result! We may doubt it to
have been such an occasion of mischief. But that mischief may have been
done by it to a nobility-loving people, even to the love of our nobility
among the people, must be granted; and for the particular reason,
that the hero of the ballad behaved so handsomely. We perceive a
susceptibility to adulteration in their worship at the sight of one of
their number, a young maid, suddenly snatched up to the gaping heights
of Luxury and Fashion through sheer good looks. Remembering that they
are accustomed to a totally reverse effect from that possession, it is
very perceptible how a breach in their reverence may come of the change.

Otherwise the balla