74: MANNERS AND FASHION. 



more iKau is due that in the constantly widening applica 

 tion of &quot; esquire,&quot; in the perpetual repetition of &quot; your 

 honour&quot; by the fawning Irishman, and in the use of the 

 name &quot;gentleman&quot; to any coalheaver or dustman by tho 

 lower classes of London, we have current examples of tho 

 depreciation of titles consequent on compliment and that 

 in barbarous times, when the wish to propitiate was stronger 

 than now, this effect must have been greater ; we shall sco 

 that there naturally arose an extensive misuse of all early 

 distinctions. Hence the facts, that the Jews called Herod 

 a god ; that J at her, in its higher sense, was a term used 

 among them by servants to masters ; that Lord was appli 

 cable to any person of worth and power. Hence, too, the 

 fact that, in the later periods of the Roman Empire, every 

 man saluted his neighbour as Dominus and Ilex. 



]&amp;gt;ut it is in the titles of the middle ages, and in tho 

 growth of our modern ones out of them, that the process 

 is most clearly seen. Jltrr, J)on, titynivr, ticiyncnr, Sen- 

 nor, were all originally names of rulers of feudal lords. 

 ]&amp;gt;y the complimentary use of these names to all who could, 

 on any pretence, be supposed to merit them, and by suc 

 cessive degradations of them from each step in the descent 

 to a still lower one, they have come to be common form;) 

 of address. At first the phrase in which a serf acosted his 

 despotic chief, me in hcrr is now familiarly applied in Ger 

 many to ordinary people. The Spanish title Don, once? 

 proper to noblemen and gentlemen only, is now accorded 

 to all classes. So, too, is it with Signior \\\ Italy. Seiynciir, 

 and Mbnseiffneur, by contraction in Sleur and Monsieur, 

 have produced the term of respect claimed by every 

 Frenchman. .And whether /Sire be or be not a like con 

 traction of Kignior, it is clear that, as it was borne by sun 

 dry of tho ancient feudal lords of France, who, as Seldcn 

 says, &quot; allected rather to boo stiled by the name of Sirt 

 than Baron, as JJc Sire dc Montmorencie, Lc, Sire de 



