rule, faithful service in the one path or the other will shower honour
upon the subject, and by the breath of kings he becomes ennobled to look
down upon his former equals.

And as the world spins round, the _why_ is of little moment. The honours
are bequeathed, but not the good, or the evil deeds, or the talents by
which they were obtained. In the latter, we have but a life interest,
for the entail is cut off by death. Aristocracy in all its varieties is
as necessary, for the well binding of society, as the divers grades
between the general and the common soldier are essential in the field.
Never then inquire, why this or that man has been raised above his
fellows; but, each night as you retire to bed, thank Heaven that you are
not _a King_.

And if I may digress, there is one badge of honour in our country, which
I never contemplate without serious reflection rising in my mind. It is
the _bloody_ hand in the dexter chief of a baronet,--now often worn, I
grant, by those who, perhaps, during their whole lives have never raised
their hands in anger. But my thoughts have returned to days of yore--the
iron days of _ironed men_, when it _was_ the symbol of faithful service
in the field--when it really was bestowed upon the "hand embrued in
blood;" and I have meditated, whether that hand, displayed with
exultation in this world, may not be held up trembling in the next--in
judgment against itself.

And I, whose memory stepping from one legal murder to another, can walk
dry-footed over the broad space of five-and-twenty years of time,--but
the "damned spots" won't come out--so I'll put my hands in my pockets
and walk on.