74 MAl^^NERS AND FASHION. 



more tkau is due — that in the constantly widening applica- 

 tion of " esquire," in the perpetual repetition of " your 

 honour" by the fawning Irishman, and in the use of the 

 name " gentleman " to any coalheaver or dustman by the 

 lower classes of London, we have current examples of the 

 depreciation of titles consequent on compliment — a£id that 

 in barbarous times, when the wish to propitiate was stronger 

 than now, this efiect must have been greater ; we shall see 

 that there naturally arose an extensive misuse of all early 

 distinctions. Hence the facts, that the Jews called Herod 

 a god ; that Father^ in its higher sense, was a term used 

 among them by servants to masters ; that Lord was appli- 

 cable to any j)erson 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 Mex. 



But it is in the titles of the middle ages, and in the 

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

 is most clearly seen. Serr^ Don^ Signior^ Seigneur^ Sen- 

 noi\ were all originally names of rulers — of feudal lords. 

 By 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 forms 

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

 ilespotic chief, meiii herr is now familiarly ai^pliedin 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 Slgiiior'Yo. Italy. Seigneur ^ 

 and Monseig7ieur^ by contraction in Sleiir and Monsieur^ 

 have produced the term of respect claimed by every 

 Frenchman. And whether 8ire be or be not a like con- 

 traction of Signior^ it is clear that, as it was borne by sun- 

 dry of the ancient feudal lords of France, who, as Selden 

 says, " aifected rather to bee stiled by the name of Sire 

 than Baron, as Le Sire de Montmorencie^ Le Sire de 



