a proud book.  Do you know that I was domestic doctor to a lord, who was called Marmaduke, and who had thirty-six thousand a year?  Think of that, you hideous idiot!  Do you know that, with rabbits only from the warrens of Earl Lindsay, they could feed all the riffraff of the Cinque Ports?  And the good order kept!  Every poacher is hung.  For two long furry ears sticking out of a game bag I saw the father of six children hanging on the gibbet.  Such is the peerage.  The rabbit of a great lord is of more importance than God’s image in a man.

“Lords exist, you trespasser, do you see? and we must think it good that they do; and even if we do not, what harm will it do them?  The people object, indeed!  Why?  Plautus himself would never have attained the comicality of such an idea.  A philosopher would be jesting if he advised the poor devil of the masses to cry out against the size and weight of the lords.  Just as well might the gnat dispute with the foot of an elephant.  One day I saw a hippopotamus tread upon a molehill; he crushed it utterly.  He was innocent.  The great soft-headed fool of a mastodon did not even know of the existence of moles.  My son, the moles that are trodden on are the human race.  To crush is a law.  And do you think that the mole himself crushes nothing?  Why, it is the mastodon of the fleshworm, who is the mastodon of the globeworm.  But let us cease arguing.  My boy, there are coaches in the world; my lord is inside, the people under the wheels; the philosopher gets out of the way.  Stand aside, and let them pass.  As to myself, I love lords, and shun them.  I lived with one; the beauty of my recollections suffices me.  I remember his country house, like a glory in a cloud.  My dreams are all retrospective.  Nothing could be more admirable than Marmaduke Lodge in grandeur, beautiful symmetry, rich avenues, and the ornaments and surroundings of the edifice.  The houses, country seats, and palaces of the lords present a selection of all that is greatest and most magnificent in this flourishing kingdom.  I love our lords.  I thank them for being opulent, powerful, and prosperous.  I myself am clothed in shadow, and I look with interest upon the shred of heavenly blue which is called a lord.  You enter Marmaduke Lodge by an exceedingly spacious courtyard, which forms an oblong square, divided into eight spaces, each surrounded by a balustrade; on each side is a wide approach, and a superb hexagonal fountain plays in the midst; this fountain is formed of two basins, which are surmounted by a dome of exquisite openwork, elevated on six columns.  It was there that I knew a learned Frenchman, Monsieur l’Abbe du Cros, who belonged to the Jacobin monastery in the Rue Saint Jacques.  Half the library of Erpenius is at Marmaduke Lodge, the other half being at the theological gallery at Cambridge.  I used to read the books, seated under the ornamented portal.  These things are only shown to a select number of curious travellers.