d by his own honourable patronymic rather than haply Farringford or
Hazlemere: how can great names consent to be eclipsed in such obscure
signatures as Wantage or Esher, Hindlip or Glossop, Dalling or
Grimsthorpe? One gets quite at a loss to know who's who.

My letter to the _Times_ of December 19, 1883, headed "Literary
Honours," in praise of Tennyson's elevation to the House of Lords, and
showing how in every age all nations except our own have given honours
to authors, literally "from China to Peru," elicited plenty both of
approval and of censure from journals of many denominations. As a matter
inevitable when Baron Tennyson was gazetted, the less euphonious Tupper
was stigmatised in the papers as desiring to be a Baron too,--at all
events, the _Echo_ said so, and the _Globe_ good-humouredly observed
that "he deserved the coronet." They little knew that in the summer of
1863 (as paragraphs in my tenth volume of "Archives" are now before me
to show) the same derided scribe was seriously announced as "about to be
raised to the peerage" all over England and America: see two available
and respectable proofs in the _British Controversialist_ (Houlston &
Wright) for July 1863, p. 79,--and Bryant's _Evening Post_ for September
17, 1863. I name these, as the reverse of comic papers,--and publishing
what they supposed true, as in fact was told me by the editors when
inquired of. At the time I repudiated the false rumour openly;--with all
the greater readiness, inasmuch as I dispute both the justice of
hereditary honour and the wisdom of hereditary legislation; to say less
of the "_res angusta domi_" which, in our Mammonite time and clime,
obliges money to support rank, even if, as in sundry late cases of
raising to the peerage, it does not purchase it.

It is fair also to state as a fact, that when my father for the second
time refused his baronetcy, I, as eldest son, gave the casting vote
against myself, not to impoverish my four younger brothers,--all now
gone before me to the better world,--and that, for reasons mentioned
above, I certainly could not take it now. Let this suffice as my reply
to some recent sneers and strictures.

As for letters of the alphabet attached to one's name, almost any one
nowadays may have any amount of them by paying fees or subscriptions; in
particular, America has given me many honorary diplomas. And for the
matter of gold medals, who can covet them, when even the creators of
baking-powder