[331] Gentle and gentlemanly may be derived from the same root as genteel; but nothing can be more distinct from the mere genteel, than the ideas which enlightened minds associate with these words. Gentle and gentlemanly mean something kind and genial; genteel, that which is glittering or gaudy. A person can be a gentleman in rags, but nobody can be genteel. (G.B.)
[332] A favourite figure of Carlyle’s, but both he and Borrow took the mot from a report of Thurtell’s trial: Q. ‘What do you mean by respectable?’ A. ‘He kept a gig.’
[337] Perry. (Kn.)
[340] Gorgiko, ‘gentile,’ used here as a nickname.
[348] The writer has been checked in print by the Scotch with being a Norfolk man. Surely, surely, these latter times have not been exactly the ones in which it was expedient for Scotchmen to check the children of any county in England with the place of their birth, more especially those who have had the honour of being born in Norfolk—times in which British fleets, commanded by Scotchmen, have returned laden with anything but laurels from foreign shores. It would have been well for Britain had she had the old Norfolk man to dispatch to the Baltic or the Black Sea, lately, instead of Scotch admirals. (G. B.)
[355] The ‘whiffler’ was the official sword-flourisher of the Corporation.
[357a] Tom Cribb (1781-1848), champion pugilist.
[357b] Thomas Winter (1795-1851), pugilist.
[360] See Introduction.
[365] Harman-beck, ‘constable’ (old cant); modern slang, beak.