ON TITLES
In those long lists which the divine Rabelais delighted to string together, wherewith also he has inspired many diverse men, Charles Kingsley, Besant, and that remarkable historian York Powell to boot, there is one omitted which I sometimes think Rabelais meant to write and never did; and that is, the list of books which might well be produced for the advancement and entertainment of mankind.
He did indeed produce a most glorious library of books, collected, if you remember, for the education of the giant, every title in which is a delight; and much better fun, I think, when you do not know the allusions than when you do. Much better, that is, when you think it was entirely made up out of Rabelais' head than when you get to know that most of it was a parody on existing tomes. But he never gave us a list of books which might exist and do not, and such a list is always running in my head. From time to time I have jotted down a few names for such books, and the regiment of them is now formidable. My only hesitation in publishing it (or rather a fragment of it) is lest some reader should steal my thunder and himself begin writing one of these books. But I am charitable, and I also have sufficient knowledge of time and space and human conditions to be certain that I cannot in what is left of my life write them all myself, so I may as well throw out the suggestions.
(1.) British Honours. Being a guide to Literary Gents and Lion Hunters, showing what Official Honours now exist in all States subject to the British Crown, with their Distinctions, Emoluments (if any), Order of Precedence and Method of Address in writing and in speech. As also an Appendix showing the consequences mediate and immediate following on the possession of each of such Honours by any man or woman, and the consequent privileges of rank or custom attaching to their relatives, children and dependents. The whole illustrated by a copious Index with a coloured Frontispiece showing an Earl in his Robes, and sundry diagrams.
Now, this would be a most useful book, and I do not think I will go on with my list because it is in itself a subject not for one poor essay but for a very pamphlet of examination and discussion.
There never was since the beginning of the world a system of honours more complicated than ours! It is a veritable Chinese puzzle and, like all complexities, it is running riot in its last stage. It is now so thick that you cannot push your way through it. It is an old and true saying that England is an aristocratic State, or, at any rate, was an aristocratic State, i.e., that the historical nature of modern England from the early seventeenth century is that of a polity in which the citizens desire to be governed by a small class and in which such a class exists, or rather has existed, suitable to the demand calling it forth; and therein is seen the origin at least of the game of "Honours." That is why you have, standing out boldly in the arrangement of our society, the real objects (not phantasms) called a Knight, a Baronet, a Baron, an Earl, a Viscount, a Duke, and their various ladies; and that is why each grade has its own little bunch of appurtenances.
Note how exactly these appurtenances distinguish one step from the next. Your Knighthood and your Baronetcy are not to be confused; for the first is confined to the passage of this poor mortal life, but the second goes on from father to son, and is, as nearly as anything can be in this sad world, imperishable so long as a male heir is to be discovered. Your Baron is not like your Earl, for your Baron's daughters are only Honourables, whereas your Earl's daughters are Ladies. Your Duke is distinguishable by the title common to his successive consorts, not Ladies, but Duchesses. There is not a rung on this heavenward ladder which is not marked with its own stamp, and that is as it should be.
But to this simple hierarchy (resembling, I always think, the Orders of Angels, and like them nine in number—if you include Marquises, Princes and Kings) the appetite of the race has added a vast collection—much the most of it modern. You have the ecclesiastical people, each with his little tag, one being Rev., the other Very Rev., the other Right Rev. You have the distinction between the Vicar and the Rector, a branch of knowledge confined to specialists. You have the Curate, the Rural Dean; on which last the poem runs:
"Lord Archibald I grieve to say