Mr. Sheriff Hole, presented by a peer, and similarly honoured by the king, marks his sense of his patron's kindness by the insertion of his title before the cavernous epithet, and figures at urban festivals as Sir John Cornwallis Hole, the most aristocratic on the shrieval archives.
Sir Marmaduke Fuggles, Sir Cholmondeley Bilke, Sir Constantine Peregrine Rumball, Sir Temple Gostick, and Sir Peter Sackville Biles, are amongst the many whom female instigation or personal desire have led to illustrate the glory of ancient houses. It is somewhere said in "Pelham" that one's unknown neighbour, or opposite at dinner, must necessarily be a baronet and Sir John; it is no less true that at the corner of every street, in the avenues of every ballroom, a newly created knight lies in waiting to devour one. A man with a bright blue coat, and, if possible, brighter buttons, with black satin waistcoat and very gold chain, with large hands and a face of red portent, cuts in with us at whist; his antagonists are perpetually appealing to him by his brilliant title. "It is your deal, Sir Vavasour,"—"My ace, Sir Vavasour,"—"Sir Vavasour, two doubles and the rub;"—till, bewildered by the glories of our feudal partner, we lose the game, and stealthily inquire of some one near, "Who is the gentleman opposite?" "Sir Vavasour Clapshaw" is the whispered reply, recalling the name of one much respected in our youthful days,—a celebrated artist in the cricket-bat line, who has now pitched his wicket within the precincts of aristocracy, and bowls down society with the grandeur of his préfixe.
A lady in crimson velvet, with a bird of paradise in her blue and silver "turband," and a marabout boa wreathed round her neck, with long white gloves tightened unto bursting, and serpentine chains clinging unto suffocation, is seated in lofty pride at the upper end of the principal saloon, and overwhelms by the dignity of her demeanour all who come within the vortex of her "full-blown suffisance."
"Lady—what did you say? Harcourt, or Harewood,—which?—I didn't distinctly hear." "Yes, Lady Harcourt." "Why, I thought she was dead." "Oh, yes, the Countess is dead; but this is Lady Harcourt Bumsted: that's her husband, Sir Julius,—he was knighted last Wednesday."
"There's honour for you!—grinning honour," as Falstaff has it.
Notabilities like these are nearly as illustrious as the surreptitious knights and dames who, by dint of surpassing impudence, pass current for as good as they. Both classes remind us of the gypsy-herald "Rouge-Sanglier," whose colours were as bright, and trappings as gay, as those of the legitimate "Toison d'Or:" they have but one fault; like him, their blazon is false, their arms are wrongly "tricked," metal overlays metal, gold covers brass, and native gules gives way to intrusive purple. The glory of our chivalry is often awkwardly eclipsed when it happens that a Frenchman is called upon to designate the new-made knight; he treats his Christian name with as much indifference as he manifests in the spelling of his surname,—a rule he always applies to those of British growth. We know a clever, shrewd, little, antiquarian Frenchman, whom no persuasion can induce to abbreviate a single letter of reference to page, folio, edition, or date; but who, whenever he has occasion to mention a knight or baronet of his acquaintance, invariably omits his nom de baptême?. How pleasantly it would sound to hear the announcement of "Sir Biddles," "Sir Doody," or "Sir Farwig!" and yet this would be the predicament of these worthies were they ungraced by noble prænomina.
The second class whose merits we propose to discuss are the illustrators of the "Binomial Theorem,"—the double-named families,—who, too hideous to walk alone, conjoin ugliness of equal intensity to scare and appal wherever they make their way. It is not sufficient for such as they that their name be Groutage or Gramshaw; they incontinently connect it—if they can—with "a worser," (to use the showman's phrase,) and "double-up" with Rapkin or Titterton. Thus we hear, at our morning concert, Mrs. Rapkin Gramshaw's carriage stopping the way; and a vain and desolate outcry in the Opera colonnade for the chariot of Mrs. Titterton Groutage. It would matter little if we were only doomed to hear these names thus generally repeated; but there is a mode of administering them which makes us feel them, scorching and searing our inmost heart of hearts! A double name—no matter how base or dissonant—is held to be the most grateful to ears polite, as if the natural consequence of the intermarriage of two great discords must of necessity give birth to harmony.
How often have we writhed under the cruel infliction, when, betrayed by bad weather during a morning call, we have sat through the tedious hour of detaining rain, and listened to the forgotten glories of the races of Slark and Cutbush! It is a rule with all people,—no matter how they may be designated now, or how utterly their names defy the ingenuity of antiquaries to render their etymology,—to derive their ancestral honours from the time of William the Conqueror! It is true that the bastard Duke had a general letter of licence for the enlistment of all the vagabonds that swarmed in Europe at the period of his expedition; and we know how many ruffians of all classes, from the predatory baron to the pillaging freebooter, thronged to his standard,—and so far there may often be some show of reason in the pretension.
But our claimants for origin among the Conqueror's noblesse are not to be expected to dwell on this point with historical minuteness; what they wish to imply when they tell us that "the Smookers and Tites came over with the Conqueror," is, that they were equal in station to the De Albinis and De Warennes, who led their forces to the battle of Hastings, and gave the Conqueror his crown.
"Ours is a very old family indeed," says a thick-headed Devonshire squire, with scarcely wit enough to spell the name he bears,—"we came over with William the Conqueror: the Chubbs are a very old family; the first of the name was William the Conqueror's standard-bearer, Reginald de Chubb. Here's our coat of arms, we've got it on all our carriages,—three Chubs proper, in a field vert; the crest a hand and dagger,—because he saved the king's life!"