orders in the dark ages, passed away, become a dead letter, or grown absolutely mischievous, since the discovery of representative assemblies and a free press? When, again, is or has been the pride of ancestry carried furthest, and where does it rest on the most solid foundation as regards either purity of lineage, public services, or popular esteem?

Looking at the number of family histories recently printed, we feel we are no longer called upon to defend genealogical studies from the imputation of dulness, dryness, or barrenness. One thing, at least, may be confidently predicated concerning them. The sentiment, instinct, or prejudice on which they mainly rely, would seem to be implanted in mankind, and to be elicited and fostered instead of deadened by intellectual progress. We may trace its influence on the most thoughtful, self-relying, and comprehensive minds, including Bishop Watson, Franklin, Gibbon, and Burke. It is all very well to disclaim the 'avos, et proavos, et quæ non fecimus ipsi,' or to repeat complacently the

1 One of the most remarkable, a handsome quarto of 400 pages, is entitled 'Stemmata Botevilliana: Memorials of the Families of de Boteville, Thynne, and Botfield. By Beriah Botfield. London, 1860.' In this work the founder of the noble family of Thynne is stated to be John de Boteville, or de Botefelet, who, temp. Edward IV., became popularly known successively as 'of the Inn,'' th' Inn,' 'Thynn.'

Scotch family history has been enriched by The Stirlings of Keir, and their Family Papers. By William Fraser' (not published): and 'The Montgomeries Earls of Eglinton,' by the same learned and accurate writer. Sir George Stirling of Keir, the lineal ancestor of Sir William Stirling Maxwell, Bart., was the friend and companion in arms of the great Marquis of Montrose; and a Montgomery is said to have held high command under the Conqueror at Hastings. The multiplication of family histories is not confined to the Old World. Pedigree-hunting has become quite a mania in the United States, where it would seem that the best English blood, as well as the purest English accent, has been preserved. As one instance amongst many, we may cite 'The Brights of Suffolk, England: by J. B. Bright, of Boston'-a royal octavo of 345 pages. The English branches are described as extinct, and the author tacitly repudiates any relationship with the most distinguished bearer of the name, whose opinions might have been expected to endear him to his American cousins.

familiar couplet in which 'Howards' rhymes to 'cowards,' or to congratulate a millionaire, whether he relishes the compliment or not, on his being the architect of his own fortune. The odds are that he is already in treaty with the Heralds' College for a coatof-arms, and looking about for proofs of his descent paternally or maternally from some extinct family in the class of gentry.

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Nor should we be disposed to set down this tendency as altogether a sign of weakness or poverty of mind, when we find Byron prouder of his pedigree than of his poems, and the author of Waverley' risking absolute ruin in the hope of being the founder of a new line of lairds. Yet how tottering and precarious, in the great majority of instances, are these ideal edifices! how misplaced the ambition, how illusory the hope! Newstead has been in the market twice within living memory; and the Scotts of Abbotsford, in the true feudal acceptation of the term, exist no longer. Their fate is far from singular. Indeed, it is quite startling, on going over the beadroll of English worthies, to find how few are directly represented in the male line. Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Raleigh, Sidney, Dryden, Pope, Swift, Addison, Bacon, Coke, Hale, Holt, Locke, Milton, Newton, Cromwell, Hampden, Blake, Marlborough, Peterborough, Nelson, Wolfe, Clarendon, Hume, Gibbon, Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, Pitt, Fox, are obvious instances, and the list might be indefinitely prolonged. As the most eminent have left no issue, the problem, how far female descent may be admitted to supply the failure of male, might safely be left unsolved. But much of what we are about to say would appear confused or unintelligible unless we came to a clear preliminary understanding as to the precise meaning of lineage, ancestry, and birth.

We submit, then, that the distinction itself—a purely conventional creation-cannot exist at all, except

within assigned limits; because, like Shakespeare's circle in the water, it is precisely of that quality which too much spreading will disperse to nought.' It is recorded of Mary Lady Honeywood, that, at her decease in her ninety-third year, she had 367 lawful descendants then living, 16 children, 114 grandchildren, 228 great grandchildren, and 9 great great grandchildren. But to show how rapidly blood becomes diffused through females, we have simply to refer to the number of persons who undoubtedly partake of the blood royal. These are now counted by tens of thousands; and (according to Sir Bernard Burke) amongst the descendants of Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, sixth son of Edward I., who died without male issue, were a butcher and a toll-gatherer, namely, Mr. Joseph Smart, of Hales Green, and Mr. George Wilmot, keeper of the turnpike-gate at Cooper's Bank, near Dudley. Amongst the descendants of Thomas Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, fifth son of Edward III., was Mr. Stephen James Penny, the late sexton at St. George's, Hanover Square, who christened his eldest son (we believe still living) Plantagenet.

A single mis-alliance, and the decline proceeds at a gallop. In 1637, the great great grandson of Margaret Plantagenet, daughter and heiress of George Duke of Clarence, was found exercising the cobbler's craft at Newport, in Shropshire. If this scion of royalty had married and left children, he might have stocked the whole country with Plantagenets. Bernard, Duke of Norfolk, of Brooks's and Beefsteak Club celebrity, once resolved to give a dinner to all the descendants of Jockey of Norfolk, Richard III.'s friend, and directed. his steward to trace them out and make preparations accordingly. When a list, still incomplete but exceeding six hundred, was laid before him, he gave up the project. All the genuine Howards are entitled to quarter the royal arms in right of their descent from

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Margaret de Mowbray (daughter of Jockey of Norfolk'), who married Sir John Howard, fifth in descent from Sir William, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas (1297-1308), the founder of the family.1

When estates and dignities are inherited by or through females, and the paternal name is continued by assumption, the chasm is bridged over, and much of the prescriptive feeling popularly attached to an historic family is speedily won back. This is as it should be, assuming the essence of inherited nobility or gentry to consist in our progenitors having been long enough in the higher class to be under the influence of the maxim, noblesse oblige. Female descent will not break the chain of elevating associations when the property and social position are retained and transmitted by an heiress, whilst male descent will hardly preserve these unimpaired long after the estates are separated from the name and its bearers are blended with the crowd. If it takes three generations to make a gentleman,2 we fear it will not take much more to unmake one; and the last Duchess of Douglas surely stretched a point when she frequently invited a London tailor, named Douglas, to dine with her, on the score of a distant connection with her house.

The Percys, who stand at the head of Sir Bernard Burke's examples of vicissitude, hold their heads quite

This topic is fully and ably treated by Mr. Charles Long, in his Royal Descents: a Genealogical List of the several Persons entitled to quarter the Arms of the Royal Houses of England,' published in 1854. The nature of mere Royal descents,' he remarks, is well known to dabblers in genealogy. When once you are enabled to place your client in a current of decent blood, you are certain to carry him up to some one of the great fountains of honour,-Edward the Third, Edward the First, or Henry the Third.' American genealogists assert that Washington was of the blood-royal of England. The descendants of the Kings of Scotland are equally numerous.

2At this time (temp. Ed. III.) there was a distinction of gentlemen of blood and gentlemen of coat-armour, and the third from him that had first coat-armour was to all intents and purposes held a gentleman of blood.-Gwillym.

as high, and are allowed their precedence almost as readily, as if they could trace a clear descent through males from the first Norman Percy. But the male line of the English branch became extinct as near its source as the reign of Henry II., when Agnes de Percy, daughter and heiress of William, the third lord, married Joceline of Louvain, son of the Duke of Lower Brabant, who assumed the name and arms of the Percys. No diminution of rank can have resulted from such an alliance; and from this renewal of the stock till the death of the eleventh earl in 1670, no succession of feudal nobles played a more conspicuous part or were more frequently mixed up in the troubles of the State. With their vast possessions and paramount influence in the North, it was hardly possible for the Earls of Northumberland to avoid taking a side in every intestine commotion or struggle for supremacy, political or religious; and what with capricious changes of creed by royal command at one time and jarring pretensions to the crown at another, they must have been singularly fortunate, or miraculously sagacious, if they had contrived to be always in.the right or always on the winning side. After making all reasonable allowances, however, it must be owned that the Percys had a wonderful knack at getting into difficulty. They not only found rebellion when it lay in their way, but frequently went out of their way to find it, and the result was that, for one of their chiefs to die a natural death, was rather the exception than the rule.

The first earl was slain at Bramham Moor, his brother was beheaded, and his son, Hotspur, fell at Shrewsbury. The second earl was killed at St. Albans ; the third at Towton; the fourth was murdered by a mob; the fifth died in his bed, but his second son was attainted and executed at Tyburn, and his eldest, the sixth earl, died of grief and mortification after earning the title of The Unthrifty' by the improvident waste