How it is that we have come to No. 45 of this present series of papers, my dear friends and brother Snobs, I hardly know--but for a whole mortal year have we been together, prattling, and abusing the human race; and were we to live for a hundred years more, I believe there is plenty of subject for conversation in the enormous theme of Snobs.
The national mind is awakened to the subject. Letters pour in every day, conveying marks of sympathy; directing the attention of the Snob of England to races of Snobs yet undescribed. 'Where are your Theatrical Snobs; your Commercial Snobs; your Medical and Chirurgical Snobs; your Official Snobs; your Legal Snobs; your Artistical Snobs; your Musical Snobs; your Sporting Snobs?' write my esteemed correspondents. 'Surely you are not going to miss the Cambridge Chancellor election, and omit showing up your Don Snobs, who are coming, cap in hand, to a young Prince of six-and-twenty, and to implore him to be the chief of their renowned University?' writes a friend who seals with the signet of the Cam and Isis Club. 'Pray, pray,' cries another, 'now the Operas are opening, give us a lecture about Omnibus Snobs.' Indeed, I should like to write a chapter about the Snobbish Dons very much, and another about the Snobbish Dandies. Of my dear Theatrical Snobs I think with a pang; and I can hardly break away from some Snobbish artists, with whom I have long, long intended to have a palaver.
But what's the use of delaying? When these were done there would be fresh Snobs to pourtray. The labour is endless. No single man could complete it. Here are but fifty-two bricks--and a pyramid to build. It is best to stop. As Jones always quits the room as soon as he has said his good thing,--as Cincinnatus and General Washington both retired into private life in the height of their popularity,--as Prince Albert, when he laid the first stone of the Exchange, left the bricklayers to complete that edifice and went home to his royal dinner,--as the poet Bunn comes forward at the end of the season, and with feelings too tumultuous to describe, blesses his KYIND friends over the footlights: so, friends, in the flush of conquest and the splendour of victory, amid the shouts and the plaudits of a people--triumphant yet modest--the Snob of England bids ye farewell.