YOUNGER SONS.
IT greatly moves our indignation to see the silly slang about "younger sons," in the so-called fashionable novels, creeping into the ideas-and conversation of society. Foolish persons, small hni- tators of the great, who talk thus of younger sons, ought to re- member at least that in their circle there is very little difference between elder and younger sons, and that inany circle the dis- tinction is a very poor one, and may be reckoned on the fingers. A younger son may be a gentleman and a man of honour, a mars of talent, a man of honest purpose, of great energy—he may be of national use : but all this, forsooth, is lost in some foolish term of
"a detrimental," "an obstacle," &c. because he is notgreat in horse- flesh, and runs small in hog's-flesh,--that is, in the height of his
footmen ; and lives in one street instead of another, and makes three windows let in as much light as five. A man of honour, be he born fil•st or second, enfolds within himself a whole volume of high qualities, not to be sneered at by boarding-school misses under the tuition-of the cireulating library. The law of primogeniture may be, a bad one—we believe it is ; but it is not so bad as to de- prive man of all his manliness. The poorest younger son is often, in the true scale of society, far higher than the mere representative of wealth : and amongst other mischief's caused by what are called fashionable novels, may be reckoned that of decorating the low in- trigues of a few wretched struggling mothers with the honours of celebrity, and the apparent sanction of genius.
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