eauty, and
benefit, to the individuals actually found there. Monarchs and heroes,
sages and lovers, these gallants are not. Fashion has many classes and
many rules of probation and admission; and not the best alone. There
is not only the right of conquest, which genius pretends,--the
individual, demonstrating his natural aristocracy best of the
best;--but less claims will pass for the time; for Fashion loves
lions, and points, like Circe,[431] to her horned company. This
gentleman is this afternoon arrived from Denmark; and that is my Lord
Ride, who came yesterday from Bagdad; here is Captain Friese, from
Cape Turnagain, and Captain Symmes,[432] from the interior of the
earth; and Monsieur Jovaire, who came down this morning in a balloon;
Mr. Hobnail, the reformer; and Reverend Jul Bat, who has converted
the whole torrid zone in his Sunday school; and Signer Torre del
Greco, who extinguished Vesuvius by pouring into it the Bay of Naples;
Spahr, the Persian ambassador; and Tul Wil Shan, the exiled nabob of
Nepaul, whose saddle is the new moon.--But these are monsters of one
day, and to-morrow will be dismissed to their holes and dens; for, in
these rooms every chair is waited for. The artist, the scholar, and,
in general, the clerisy,[433] wins its way up into these places, and
gets represented here, somewhat on this footing of conquest. Another
mode is to pass through all the degrees, spending a year and a day in
St. Michael's Square,[434] being steeped in Cologne water,[435] and
perfumed, and dined, and introduced, and properly grounded in all the
biography, and politics, and anecdotes of the boudoirs.

18. Yet these fineries may have grace and wit. Let there be grotesque
sculpture about the gates and offices of temples. Let the creed and
commandments even have the saucy homage of parody. The forms of
politeness universally express benevolence in superlative degrees.
What if they are in the mouths of selfish men, and used as means of
selfishness? What if the false gentleman almost bows the true out of
the world? What if the false gentleman contrives so to address his
companion, as civilly to exclude all others from his discourse, and
also to make them feel excluded? Real service will not lose its
nobleness. All generosity is not merely French and sentimental; nor is
it to be concealed, that living blood and a passion of kindness does
at last distinguish God's gentleman from Fashion's. The epitaph of Sir
Jenkin Grout i