In the King’s Bench Walks, the whole buildings are inhabited by esquires only.  The adjacent street of Essex, from Morris’ Coffee-house, and the turning towards the Grecian, you cannot meet one who is not an esquire, till you take water.  Every house in Norfolk and Arundel Streets is governed also by a squire, or his lady.  Soho Square, Bloomsbury Square, and all other places where the floors rise above nine feet, are so many universities, where you enter yourselves, and become of our order.  However, if this were the worst of the evil, it were to be supported, because they are generally men of some figure and use; though I know no pretence they have to an honour which had its rise from chivalry.  But if you travel into the counties of Great Britain, we are still more imposed upon by innovation.  We are indeed derived from the field:  but shall that give title to all that ride mad after foxes, that halloo when they see a hare, or venture their necks full speed after a hawk, immediately to commence esquires?  No, our order is temperate, cleanly, sober, and chaste; but these rural esquires commit immodesties upon haycocks, wear shirts half a week, and are drunk twice a day.  These men are also to the last degree excessive in their food:  an esquire of Norfolk eats two pounds of dumpling every meal, as if obliged to it by our order:  an esquire of Hampshire is as ravenous in devouring hogs’ flesh:  one of Essex has as little mercy on calves.  But I must take the liberty to protest against them, and acquaint those persons, that it is not the quantity they eat, but the manner of eating, that shows a squire.  But above all, I am most offended at small quillmen, and transcribing clerks, who are all come into our order, for no reason that I know of, but that they can easily flourish it at the end of their name.  I’ll undertake, that if you read the superscriptions to all the offices in the kingdom, you will not find three letters directed to any but esquires.  I have myself a couple of clerks, and the rogues make nothing of leaving messages upon each other’s desk:  one directs, to “Degory Goosequill, Esq.”; to which the other replies by a note, to “Nehemiah Dashwell, Esq.; with respect.”  In a word, it is now, populus armigerorum, a people of esquires.  And I don’t know, but, by the late Act of Naturalisation,[232] foreigners will assume that title, as part of the immunity of being Englishmen.  All these improprieties flow from the negligence of the Heralds’ Office.  Those gentlemen in parti-coloured habits do not so rightly, as they ought, understand themselves; though they are dressed cap-a-pie in hieroglyphics, they are inwardly but ignorant men.  I asked an acquaintance of mine, who is a man of wit, but of no fortune, and is forced to appear as Jack Pudding on the stage to a mountebank:  “Prithee, Jack, why is your coat of so many colours?” He replied, “I act a fool, and this spotted dress is to signify, that every man living has a weak place