A mere gentleman may hope to sit at almost anybody's table--to take
his place at my lord duke's in the country--to dance a quadrille at
Buckingham Palace itself--(beloved Lady Wilhelmina Wagglewiggle! do you
recollect the sensation we made at the ball of our late adored Sovereign
Queen Caroline, at Brandenburg House, Hammersmith?) but the City Snob's
doors are, for the most part, closed to him; and hence all that one
knows of this great class is mostly from hearsay.
In other countries of Europe, the Banking Snob is more expansive and
communicative than with us, and receives all the world into his
circle. For instance, everybody knows the princely hospitalities of the
Scharlaschild family at Paris, Naples, Frankfort, &c.. They entertain
all the world, even the poor, at their FETES. Prince Polonia, at Rome,
and his brother, the Duke of Strachino, are also remarkable for their
hospitalities. I like the spirit of the first-named nobleman. Titles not
costing much in the Roman territory, he has had the head clerk of the
banking-house made a Marquis, and his Lordship will screw a BAJOCCO
out of you in exchange as dexterously as any commoner could do. It is a
comfort to be able to gratify such grandees with a farthing or two;
it makes the poorest man feel that he can do good. 'The Polonias have
intermarried with the greatest and most ancient families of Rome, and
you see their heraldic cognizance (a mushroom or on an azure field)
quartered in a hundred places in the city with the arms of the Colonnas
and Dorias.
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