Hiram Boake,
and the rest? A score of such queer names and titles I have smiled at in
America. And, mutato nomine? I meet a born idiot, who is a peer and born
legislator. This drivelling noodle and his descendants through life are
your natural superiors and mine--your and my children's superiors. I
read of an alderman kneeling and knighted at court: I see a gold-stick
waddling backwards before Majesty in a procession, and if we laugh,
don't you suppose the Americans laugh too?

Yes, stars, garters, orders, knighthoods, and the like, are folly. Yes,
Bobus, citizen and soap-boiler, is a good man, and no one laughs at him
or good Mrs. Bobus, as they have their dinner at one o'clock. But
who will not jeer at Sir Thomas on a melting day, and Lady Bobus, at
Margate, eating shrimps in a donkey-chaise? Yes, knighthood is absurd:
and chivalry an idiotic superstition: and Sir Walter Manny was a zany:
and Nelson, with his flaming stars and cordons, splendent upon a day
of battle, was a madman: and Murat, with his crosses and orders, at the
head of his squadrons charging victorious, was only a crazy mountebank,
who had been a tavern-waiter, and was puffed up with absurd vanity about
his dress and legs. And the men of the French line at Fontenoy, who
told Messieurs de la Garde to fire first, were smirking French
dancing-masters; and the Black Prince, waiting upon his royal prisoner,
was acting an inane masquerade: and Chivalry is naught; and honor is
humbug; and Gentlemanhood is an extinct folly; and Ambition is madness;
and desire of distinction is criminal vanity; and glory is bosh; and
fair fame is idleness; and nothing is true but two and two; and the
color of all the world is drab; and all men are equal; and one man is
as tall as another; and one man is as good as another--and a great dale
betther, as the Irish philosopher said.

Is this so? Titles and badges of honor are vanity; and in the American
Revolution you have his Excellency General Washington sending back, and
with proper spirit sending back, a letter in which he is not addressed
as Excellency and General. Titles are abolished; and the American
Republic swarms with men claiming and bearing them. You have the French
soldier cheered and happy in his dying agony, and kissing with frantic
joy the chief's hand who lays the little cross on the bleeding bosom. At
home you have the Dukes and Earls jobbing and intriguing for the Garter;
the Military Knights grumbling at the C