n at a time"--upon which a
rough, honest gentleman took him up short, "I would fain know what
that gentleman means: is there any one in this house that has _not_
had the honor to be born as well as himself?" The good sense which
reigns in our nation has pretty well destroyed this starched behavior
among men who have seen the world, and know that every gentleman will
be treated upon a foot of equality. But there are many who have had
their education among women, dependents or flatterers, that lose all
the respect which would otherwise be paid them by being too assiduous
in procuring it.

My Lord Froth has been so educated in punctilio, that he governs
himself by a ceremonial in all the ordinary occurrences of life. He
measures out his bow to the degree of the person he converses with. I
have seen him in every inclination of the body, from a familiar nod to
the low stoop in the salutation-sign. I remember five of us, who were
acquainted with one another, met together one morning at his lodgings,
when a wag of the company was saying, it would be worth while to
observe how he would distinguish us at his first entrance.
Accordingly, he no sooner came into the room, but, casting his eye
about, "My lord such a one (says he) your most humble servant.--Sir
Richard, your humble servant.--Your servant, Mr. Ironside.--Mr.
Ducker, how do you do?--Hah! Frank, are you there?"

There is nothing more easy than to discover a man whose head is full
of his family. Weak minds that have imbibed a strong tincture of the
nursery, younger brothers that have been brought up to nothing,
superannuated retainers to a great house, have generally their
thoughts taken up with little else.

I had some years ago an aunt of my own, by name Mrs. Martha Ironside,
who would never marry beneath herself, and is supposed to have died a
maid in fourscorth year of her age. She was the chronicle of our
family, and passed away the greatest part of the last forty years of
her life in recounting the antiquity, marriages, exploits, and
alliances of the Ironsides. Mrs. Martha conversed generally with a
knot of old virgins, who were likewise of good families, and had been
very cruel all the beginning of the last century. They were every one
of them as proud as Lucifer, but said their prayers twice a day, and
in all other respects were the best women in the world. If they saw a
fine petticoat at church, they immediately took to pieces the pedigree
of her that wore i