An accident, however, in which perhaps
no offence was designed, drove me out to wander again. I know not
whether my reader may have remarked, but I have often remarked, that the
proudest class of people in England (or at any rate the class whose pride
is most apparent) are the families of bishops. Noblemen and their
children carry about with them, in their very titles, a sufficient
notification of their rank. Nay, their very names (and this applies also
to the children of many untitled houses) are often, to the English ear,
adequate exponents of high birth or descent. Sackville, Manners,
Fitzroy, Paulet, Cavendish, and scores of others, tell their own tale.
Such persons, therefore, find everywhere a due sense of their claims
already established, except among those who are ignorant of the world by
virtue of their own obscurity: "Not to know _them_, argues one's self
unknown." Their manners take a suitable tone and colouring, and for once
they find it necessary to impress a sense of their consequence upon
others, they meet with a thousand occasions for moderating and tempering
this sense by acts of courteous condescension. With the families of
bishops it is otherwise: with them, it is all uphill work to make known
their pretensions; for the proportion of the episcopal bench taken from
noble families is not at any time very large, and the succession to these
dignities is so rapid that the public ear seldom has time to become
familiar with them, unless where they are connected with some literary
reputation.
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