It has often been said by foreigners, either from malice or through ignorance, that the only nobility in England is the peerage. This assertion, though doubtless gratifying to the nobles of those countries where the desire is to lower and humble the "perfide Albion," is no less unfounded than it is derogatory to the English Gentry and to the Peers themselves. If Viscount Combermere or Lord Wrottesley date their nobility only from the patents of their peerages, they must, indeed, be mere mushrooms. But the fact is that, as in the cases above mentioned, many of the newest peers possess the oldest pedigrees, and after having been, for ages, enrolled in the lists of the noble British Gentry, they are, at length, raised to a higher rank in that nobility, and to certain political privileges which they did not previously enjoy.

There have been instances of English country gentlemen of station and family who, upon refusing a peerage, have thought that they made a most magnanimous speech when they declared that they preferred being an ancient squire to being a modern peer. This sentiment however, is simply ignorant nonsense. There may be many sufficient reasons which render elevation to the peerage inexpedient; but most certainly one of them need never be pride of lineage. A peer of yesterday is not, on that account, the less an ancient gentleman, if he was one before; and the dignity of the peerage, however much and justly it may elevate a man of humble birth in the scale of society, can never make him a gentleman in blood. King James the First of Great Britain pithily said of an obscure aspirant after gentility, "I can make him a Lord , but I cannot make him a gentleman."

Our neighbours on the continent are very apt to indulge in a sneer at our confining our estimate of nobility to the peerage; and they glory in the comparatively modern date of many of the creations in that illustrious body. But in one of the principal countries of the continent, viz., France, the number of nobles before the revolution was reckoned at 365,000, and many of the most obscure station, as well as recent origin. There, and indeed in other continental countries, titles have no corresponding duties and responsibilities attached to them, as in England, and they are vulgarised from being transmitted, as mere titles, to cadet branches of a family.

In France, titles have been especially depressed, because during the last two centuries the French noblesse have taken such as they chose (always excepting that of Duke which was subjected to more strict rules); and although those titles have been recognised by the courtesy of society, still the effect of this extraordinary licence has been to lower the estimate of such honorary distinctions, even in the case of those which were lawfully granted. There is no doubt that many French Marquises and Counts derived their titles and family honours direct from the Crown. But we apprehend that these were few in number when compared with those which owed their origin to pure assumption. For instance, if an estate was purchased which had belonged to a titled family, the purchaser was in the habit of transferring to himself the honours of his predecessor. And titles and nobility were often affected on even much less substantial grounds. Molière described a true state of the society of his age and country when he introduces in one of his most witty comedies the wealthy bourgeois, George Dandin, assuming the airs and honours of nobility as M. De la Dandinière. Such abuses had risen to an unprecedented height in the reign of Louis XV., who endeavoured unsuccessfully to put a stop to them. Since then the political vicissitudes of France have sufficiently engrossed the attention of its successive rulers, whether Royal or Imperial, to leave no time for such occupations. It remains to be seen whether a fourth dynasty has now begun, which, from its duration and strength, may succeed where a Bourbon has failed.

It is, however, a fact that these impudent assumptions on the part of upstart French families did not affect the true nobility of the old French Houses. We have already said that the honours of Ducal rank were held sacred, and could never be assumed without a right recognised by the Crown; but the inferior titles of Marquis, Count, Viscount, and Baron, may be said, all, to have ranked on the same footing; the higher or lower consideration in which they were held depending not on the degree of the title, but on its known antiquity, and on the ancestral illustration of him who bore it. During the last fifty years the titles of Marquis and Viscount have gained a good deal of consideration in France; for they in general imply a nobility of at least two generations, no such titles having been conferred during the Empire, nor, as we believe, under Louis Philippe. We are uncertain whether Louis XVIII. or Charles X. created either Marquises or Viscounts; but we believe these two titles to belong exclusively to the old regime.

The French monarchs before the revolution were reduced to the necessity of taking measures of self-defence against the insolent assumption of high-sounding titles by upstarts and adventurers. In order to create a principle of discrimination entirely apart from those really paltry titular distinctions, the Bourbon Kings established a rule that no one should be admitted to the Royal hunting parties who could not prove his nobility as far back as the year 1400. Then the green glades of the Royal forests were made the select scenes of aristocratic exclusiveness, when the drawing-room had failed in being so. And this criterion in some measure answered its end by repressing presumptuous parvenus; at the same time that it undoubtedly kept back many who did not deserve to be excluded. For it is extraordinary what a number of well-known and illustrious French families were wholly unable to meet this test.

When we compare our British nobility with the motley rabble who were dignified with this epithet in France, we may consider ourselves modest in our pretensions. According to a statement produced in 1798, when the subject of armorial bearings was before the British Parliament, there were found to be 9,458 English families, and 4,000 Scottish ones, entitled to bear coats of arms, all of which families are, strictly speaking, noble. "Nobiles," says Sir Edward Coke, "sunt qui arma gentilitia antecessorum suorum proferre possunt."

When a sovereign wished to reward one of humble rank he gave him a patent of nobility, and in that patent were blazoned the arms which were henceforth to distinguish his shield. Every noble had a shield of arms, and hence arms became the criterion of nobility; and in every country a grant of arms to any one confers nobility on his descendants. In some countries of the continent, such as Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and Russia, titles, in like manner, descend to the younger branches, and to the unmarried daughters of families. In Italy the titles which have been conferred by the German Emperor follow the German rule, while the titles of Prince or Duke, conferred by the Pope and the King of Naples, belong only to the eldest son, the younger branches styling themselves "dei Duchi," "dei Principi." In France the same title was not, indeed, shared by all the sons of the family. But each assumed some honorary distinction from one or other of their estates. For instance, if the father was Marquis of A, his eldest son was perhaps Count, with the same or a different designation. The second son was Vicomte de C, and the third son was Chevalier or Baron de D. This habit of assigning different designations to various members of the same family (and that much more arbitrarily than is the case with ourselves) produces much confusion in French domestic annals, and even in general history. In Spain and in Portugal the superior titles of the high nobility are confined to the eldest son. But in every European country the cadets of those noble houses, whether or not they possess the same titles and privileges with the elder branch, are not less noble than the heads of their respective houses.

The great families of Venice give us the example of the most ancient nobility in the world without title or honorary distinction. In the year 697, twelve illustrious citizens met together in order to elect a sovereign of the Venetian Republic; and these were Contarini, Morosi, Badoaro, Tiepolo, Michieli, Sanudo, Gradenigo, Memmo, Falieri, Dandolo, Polani, and Barozzi, the heads of the greatest houses in the State of Venice during its infancy, and several of whom are represented by descendants in the male line in our own day. Thus we find nobles of an antiquity of twelve centuries who have not, and who never have had, that which, according to the vulgar English estimate, is essential to nobility, viz., a title, or handle to the name.

All the real old indigenous families of the Republic were untitled. Where titled names were inscribed in the Libro d'Oro, they belonged to illustrious foreigners, on whom the Republic deigned to confer a mark of consideration, or to titled nobles of the terra firma, who had become subjects of Saint Mark. It has been remarked that the last Doge Manini, the craven, who, without a struggle, yielded up to the foe his splendid trust, was the first sovereign of the glorious republic who was not of an ancient house; and he was, moreover, the first who bore the title of Count.

Any foreigner who is familiar with the history and institutions of Venice must be well aware that the most illustrious nobility can only be handed down for twelve centuries without the adventitious aid of a title. And it only requires an acquaintance with the details of English county history to be convinced that many of the families of our untitled gentry can boast of a nobility as ancient as any that exists in France and Germany. We yield, doubtless in common with every European State, the palm of antiquity to Venice. And the freedom and equality of our social institutions forbid the exclusive strictness of a Libro d'Oro. But in every county in Great Britain we have a vast body of ancient native nobility. And it would be difficult for either France or Germany to rival the claims of a Clifton, a Wake, a Dundas, a Meynell, a Swinburne, a Wolseley, a Burdett, a Legh, a Wynne, a Riddell, a Kirkpatrick, a Welby, or a Gresley. Are not the male heirs of Ferrers, Earl of Derby, and Dunbar, Earl of March, noble, although they have been untitled for centuries? What nobility can surpass the twenty-one knightly and baronial generations of Anstruther? And could any title of the peerage add to the nobility of him, upon whose tomb is inscribed, "John Hampden, twenty-fourth hereditary Lord of Great Hampden?"

The English gentry gave many knights to the noble order of the Temple in ancient times. And before the abolition of the "Langue d'Angleterre" at the Reformation, every English gentleman of four quarters of gentility was admissible into the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. The English knights were chosen among the gentry, and the prior had a seat in the House of Lords. The German knights were chosen among the barons or "nobiles minores," and the prior of Germany had a seat in the Diet of the Empire. The untitled British gentry have been distinguished as field-marshalls, generals, and admirals. They have held noble posts near the person of their sovereign; and they have represented that sovereign as ambassadors at the most illustrious foreign courts. They have been admitted into the highest orders of chivalry; and we find them among the founders of the Garter. They, therefore possess all the essential characteristics of nobility; and they may, in all respects, be considered as on a par with the "noblesse" of the continent.

An unintentional injury has been inflicted on the gentry of Britain by the great lexicographer; unintentional truly, because Samuel Johnson was a friend to aristocratic institutions, and an admirer of ancestral distinctions. Yet being neither antiquary nor herald, he has fallen into the blunder, so common in England during the last two centuries, of confounding nobility with the peerage. In his dictionary he defines a gentleman to be "one of good extraction, but not noble." The translation of this great work into foreign languages has confused the ideas of foreigners on the subject of the social position of the British gentry. An earlier lexicographer, Bailey, has given a much more correct definition of gentleman, as "one who has received nobility from his ancestors, and not from the gift of any prince or state."

As among the higher nobility, we have different degrees marked by the various ranks in the peerage; so in the lower nobility or gentry we have several distinctions, such as Baronets, Knights, Esquires, and Gentlemen.

The honour of knighthood, which was so highly prized in the days of our Plantagenet and Tudor sovereigns, has now essentially lost its imposing character, being very frequently conferred on the chief magistrates of towns. It is, however, not confined to such, as it is given to judges, and to persons of distinction in science or literature; and it is frequently borne by officers in the army or navy who have received an order of knighthood from a foreign sovereign. It is also officially and honourably held by the most distinguished officers in the Heralds' Colleges, such as the Garter King-at-Arms, and the Ulster King-at-Arms. But when a distinction under that of the peerage is conferred, now-a-days, on a country gentleman, he is not knighted, as was the case some centuries ago, but is made a Baronet.

This hereditary order of knighthood very much puzzles our continental neighbours; and it is a distinction exclusively confined to Great Britain and Ireland. Like the peerage, the dignity of Baronet has often been made the object of ignorant sneers. An ancient gentleman considers it a degradation to become a Baronet! He forgets, however, that upon becoming a Baronet of recent creation, he does not cease to be a gentleman of ancient nobility; and although it is true that he may share this dignity, such as it is, with some who are of much less ancient and noble lineage than his own; yet this is no more than befalls him every day in his life, when, as a country 'squire, he sits on the same Bench, and at the same Board with neighbouring 'squires who hold as good a social place as himself, though they possess much shorter pedigrees.

At the same time, there is no doubt that the dignity of Baronet has, from the period of its institution, been especially coveted by new men, who thereby obtained a footing in society and established their families on a somewhat higher grade than would have been conceded to them without such an adventurous distinction. The feelings occasioned among the older Scottish gentry by the institution of the Order of Nova Scotia Baronets was thus expressed in a couplet of the 17th century:-

Your servant, Sir James, your servant, Sir John!

Noble knights every one!

Thanks to our sovereigns, James and Charles,

Those now are knights who once were Carles!