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 is not wholly unintelligible to the present age.  “Here lies Sir Jenkin Grout, who loved his friend, and persuaded his enemy:  what his mouth ate, his hand paid for:  what his servants robbed, he restored:  if a woman gave him pleasure, he supported her in pain:  he never forgot his children:  and whoso touched his finger, drew after it his whole body.”  Even the line of heroes is not utterly extinct.  There is still ever some admirable person in plain clothes, standing on the wharf, who jumps in to rescue a drowning man; there is still some absurd inventor of charities; some guide and comforter of runaway slaves; some friend of Poland;[436] some Philhellene;[437] some fanatic