It is a task of no ordinary difficulty to convey any tolerable idea of this people, in their aggregate or national capacity. Consisting, as they do, of various and detached societies, they are yet considered to possess a sort of federal relation among each other; and to unite into an imaginary whole, under the collective denomination of the Fashionable World. It is under this aggregate character that they take their rank in society; and the appellation which denotes their community, is recognised by the tradesmen who advertise for their custom, and the politicians who discourse of their affairs. A very handsome proportion of the daily newspapers is devoted to their service; and intelligence from their drawing-rooms is reported with as much regularity as that which is derived from the first cabinets in Europe. Indeed, the minuteness with which their routs and dances, their dresses and dainties, the expressions they utter, the company they keep, and the excesses they commit, are detailed, is at once an evidence that these people are considered to have a corporate existence; and that no little consequence is attached to their proceedings. I wish, with all my heart, that they thought a little more of this; they would then scarcely run into such extravagancies, as make them, on too many occasions, objects of ridicule to one part of society, and dangerous examples to the other.
Their _Population_ is more fluctuating and uncertain than that of any people upon the face of the earth. There are among them certain tribes, or families, distinguished by different descendable titles, who are said to claim a sort of prescriptive right to the name of Fashionables. In these the federal appellation continues hereditary; and it is an axiom among the body, that people of _Quality_ (for this is the term by which they designate the titled gentry) can never be out of Fashion.
This is, it must be observed, their _own_ representation of the matter; and I am inclined to suspect that there is no little management at the bottom of it. There is something, no doubt, very splendid in the idea of including all the families of rank within the limits of Fashion; and it is a mark of no contemptible policy, to have constructed an axiom which so effectually cuts off their retreat. But surely, it would be but decent to allow the gentry of the realm to have a voice in the business. There _have been_ times, in which many of our Nobles would have thought themselves dishonoured by being presumed of course to sustain a Fashionable character. I cannot but think, that if the modern nobility were fairly consulted, several of them would _still_ be found to entertain the same opinion; and that persons of the first distinction in the country would be among that number.