fund of all funds, and
upon which all the rest depend?

As is the trade, so in proportion are the tradesmen; and how wealthy are
tradesmen in almost all the several parts of England, as well as in
London! How ordinary is it to see a tradesman go off the stage, even but
from mere shopkeeping, with from ten to forty thousand pounds' estate,
to divide among his family!--when, on the contrary, take the gentry in
England from one end to the other, except a few here and there, what
with excessive high living, which is of late grown so much into a
disease, and the other ordinary circumstances of families, we find few
families of the lower gentry, that is to say, from six or seven hundred
a-year downwards, but they are in debt and in necessitous circumstances,
and a great many of greater estates also.

On the other hand, let any one who is acquainted with England, look but
abroad into the several counties, especially near London, or within
fifty miles of it. How are the ancient families worn out by time and
family misfortunes, and the estates possessed by a new race of
tradesmen, grown up into families of gentry, and established by the
immense wealth, gained, as I may say, behind the counter, that is, in
the shop, the warehouse, and the counting-house! How are the sons of
tradesmen ranked among the prime of the gentry! How are the daughters of
tradesmen at this time adorned with the ducal coronets, and seen riding
in the coaches of the best of our nobility! Nay, many of our trading
gentlemen at this time refuse to be ennobled, scorn being knighted, and
content themselves with being known to be rated among the richest
commoners in the nation. And it must be acknowledged, that, whatever
they be as to court-breeding and to manners, they, generally speaking,
come behind none of the gentry in knowledge of the world.

At this very day we see the son of Sir Thomas Scawen matched into the
ducal family of Bedford, and the son of Sir James Bateman into the
princely house of Marlborough, both whose ancestors, within the memory
of the writer of these sheets, were tradesmen in London; the first Sir
William Scawen's apprentice, and the latter's grandfather a porter upon
or near London Bridge.

How many noble seats, superior to the palaces of sovereign princes (in
some countries) do we see erected within few miles of this city by
tradesmen, or the sons of tradesmen, while the seats and castles of the
ancient gentry, like their families, l