The less she has had to do
with the government the more her drawing-rooms have been crowded,
and the more eager have people become for personal marks of her
favor.
The reason of this is not far to seek. It lies in the enormous
increase during that period in the size of the class which is not
engaged in that, to the heralds, accursed thing--trade, and has
money enough to bear the expense of "a presentation," and of living
or trying to live afterward in the circle of those who might be
invited to court, or might meet the Prince of Wales at dinner. The
accumulation of fortunes since the Queen's accession has been very
great, and they have, however made, come into possession now of a
generation which has never been engaged in any occupation frowned on
by the Lord Chamberlain, and which owns estates, or at all events
possesses all outward marks of gentility, when it has been received
by the Queen, and has got into Burke's Dictionary at the end of an
interesting though perhaps apocryphal genealogy.
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