, and walks. There is nothing snobbish in having only one pair of
boots, or a favourite pair; and certainly nothing snobbish in desiring
to have them cleaned. Lord B., in so doing, performed a perfectly
natural and gentlemanlike action; for which I am so pleased with him
that I have had him designed in a favourable and elegant attitude, and
put at the head of this Chapter in the place of honour. No, we are not
personal in these candid remarks. As Phidias took the pick of a score of
beauties before he completed a Venus, so have we to examine, perhaps, a
thousand Snobs, before one is expressed upon paper.
Great City Snobs are the next in the hierarchy, and ought to be
considered. But here is a difficulty. The great City Snob is commonly
most difficult of access. Unless you are a capitalist, you cannot visit
him in the recesses of his bank parlour in Lombard Street. Unless you
are a sprig of nobility there is little hope of seeing him at home. In
a great City Snob firm there is generally one partner whose name is down
for charities, and who frequents Exeter Hall; you may catch a glimpse
of another (a scientific City Snob) at my Lord N----'s SOIREES, or the
lectures of the London Institution; of a third (a City Snob of taste)
at picture-auctions, at private views of exhibitions, or at the Opera or
the Philharmonic. But intimacy is impossible, in most cases, with this
grave, pompous, and awful being.
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