224 TRUE NOBILITY. COMMONER. 



as it comprises birth as well as notability. Gentility, there- 

 fore, is obviously superior to nobility. 



ESTHER. 



Yes; I well recollect the answer of James I, who when 

 asked by his nurse to make her son a gentleman, replied, 

 " My good woman, a gentleman I could never make him, 

 though I could make him a lord;" thus marking the distinc- 

 tion you have just drawn between the two appellations. 



MRS. F. 



I have been the more particular in enforcing this distinction 

 upon your attention, because it is among the gentry, not 

 among the peers, that we must seek the true nobility of 

 England. There are, perhaps, not above four to five hundred 

 peers in Great Britain, but there are upwards of thirteen 

 thousand of ancient nobility. The landed proprietors are, in 

 every country, the natural nobility; hence, in the opinion of 

 the genealogist, those families whose names are the same as 

 their estates, such as Ratcliffe of Ratcliffe, Wolseley of 

 Wolseley, &c., are the noblest families in their respective 

 provinces. Could any title add to the nobility of the Wynns, 

 or to that of the Hampden, upon whose tomb is inscribed 

 " John Hampdon, 24th hereditary Lord of Great Hampden?" 

 Hence some of the old writers very properly speak of the no- 

 bility named and unnamed, that is, titled and untitled. 



One question more, if you please, mamma; what is the 

 meaning of the term "commoner?" 



MRS. F. 



In a legal sense, all are commoners who are amenable or 

 subject to common tribunals; the peers, therefore, are not 

 commoners, because they are their own judges, this being an 

 exclusive privilege, but no proof of nobility; for many persons 

 who have precedency over peers are subject to the common 

 law. 



