aken to the water,
these lovely chicks, and swim like ducklings, to the dismay of those
good old cocks and hens, their grandparents! And my love of them is
tinged with awe, as was Leech's love of that mighty, beautiful, but
most uncertain quadruped, the thoroughbred horse--for, like him, when
they are good, they are very, very good, but when they are bad, they
are horrid. We have changed other things as well: the swell has become
the masher, and is a terrible dull dog; the poor little snob has
blossomed into a blatant 'Arry, and no longer wears impossible hats
and iron heels to his boots; he has risen in the social scale, and
holds his own without fear or favour in the Park and everywhere else.
To be taken for a haristocrat is his dream!--even if he be pelted for
it. In his higher developments he becomes a "bounder," and bounds away
in most respectable West End ball-rooms. He is the only person with
any high spirits left--perhaps that is why high spirits have gone out
of fashion, like boxing the watch and wrenching off door-knockers!

And the snob of our day is quite a different person, more likely than
not to be found hobnobbing with dukes and duchesses--as irreproachable
in dress and demeanour as Leech himself. Thackeray discovered and
christened him for us long ago; and he is related to most of us, and
moves in the best society. He has even ceased to brag of his intimacy
with the great, they have become so commonplace to him; and if he
swaggers at all, it is about his acquaintance with some popular actor
or comic vocalist whom he is privileged to call by his christian-name.

And those splendid old grandees of high rank, so imposing of aspect,
so crushing to us poor mortals by mere virtue not of their wealth and
title alone, but of their high-bred distinction of feature and
bearing--to which Leech did such ample justice--what has become of
them?

They are like the snows of yester-year! They have gone the way of
their beautiful chariots with the elaborate armorial bearings and the
tasselled hammercloth, the bewigged, cocked-hatted coachman, and the
two gorgeous flunkies hanging on behind. Sir Gorgeous Midas has beaten
the dukes in mere gorgeousness, flunkies and all--burlesqued the
vulgar side of them, and unconsciously shamed it out of existence;
made swagger and ostentation unpopular by his own evil
example--actually improved the manners of the great by sheer mimicry
of their defects. He has married his sons and h