(From min Qual BEEN A 603) Teissibulis of Familles and other Essays. By Sir B- Aursoren the primary moral inculcated by this book are insensibly led on to specie the pool ing and philosophy of what is called B, and on be to humanity? Should it be encoun Ps, has their vocation orders in the dark ages, passed away, become letter, or grown absolutely mischievous, covery of representative assemblies and a --When, again, is or has been the pride of a ried furthest, and where does it rest o foundation as regards either purity of services, or popular esteem? Looking at the number of fami printed,1 we feel we are no longer fend genealogical studies from the ness, dryness, or barrenness. Oze be confidently predicated concering timent, instinct, or prejudice T rely, would seem to be implante be elicited and fostered instead lectual progress. We may most thoughtful, self-relying. including Bishop Watson, Fr It is all very well to disclaim quæ non fecimus ipsi,' or 1 One of the most remarkable. entitled 'Stemmata Botevilli ville, Thynne, and Botfield. Br Bee work the founder of the noble fanBoteville, or de Botefelet, known successively as 'of the Scotch family history has and their Family Papers. 'The Montgomeries Ear'writer. Sir George S Stirling Maxwell, Be great Marquis of M ommand under ** nistories is n come quite & best Engl served. 1 Suffon, pages. ta i: cute i griet e Unthi .e State. luence in Earls of in every inacy, political us changes of nd jarring premust have been sagacious, if they right or always on all reasonable allowned that the Percys g into difficulty. They it lay in their way, but r way to find it, and the ir chiefs to die a natural han the rule. ramham Moor, his n, Hotspur, fell at dat St. Albans ; d by a 1 was the ng behind at the dearly-bought grandeur that has passed away? There are signs that he who runs may read. Their recently revived call for free institutions is owing far less to the love of liberty than to the loss of military prestige. Personal government, rudely shaken by the Mexican expedition, received its death-blow at Sadowa, which threw Magenta and Solferino into the shade. France is kept awake by thinking of the trophies of Prussia, and cannot rest under the thought that she is no longer indisputably the first military nation in the world. If the Continent is to be again turned into one huge battlefield, it will be to satisfy this fantastic point of honour.1 By way of striking a congenial chord, the founder of the Second Empire, whose head is never turned like his uncle's, wrote thus : 'Palace of the Tuileries, April 12, 1869. 'MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE,-On the 15th of August next a hundred years will have elapsed since the Emperor Napoleon was born. During that long period many ruins have been accumulated, but the grand figure of Napoleon has remained, upstanding. It is that which still guides and protects usit is that which, out of nothing, has made me what I am. 'To celebrate the centenary date of the birth of the man who called France the great nation, because he had developed in her those manly virtues which found empires, is for me a sacred duty, in which the entire country will desire to join. ... 'My desire is that from the 15th of August next every soldier of the Republic and of the First Empire should receive an annual pension of 250 francs. ... To awaken grand historical recollections, is to encourage faith in the future; and to do honour to the memory of great men is to recognise one of the most striking manifestations of the Divine will.' 1 Four months after this was written, France declared war against Germany, for no intelligible cause except that her military or national honour was fancied to be at stake. To what does the grand figure point? In what sense does it guide and protect? What are the manly virtues that found empires on cannon-balls and bayonets? How is it a pious duty to do honour to such manifestations of the Divine will ?— 'If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design, If we recognise the hand of Providence in these scourges of our race, are we also bound to praise, honour, and worship them? To do so would be to imitate the barbarians who select for their fondest adoration the fetish or idol they think most capable of working evil. This tendency of the human mind to form for itself malevolent and maleficent deities to be propitiated by blood and pain, has led an eminent writer and thinker to contend that natural religion has done more harm than good, has proved, in fact, little better than a curse. Whatever may be objected to his argument, we deem it quite conclusive against that popular faith, or superstition, which erects a temple to imperialism and places the grand figure' of Napoleon on the shrine.' 1 Napoleon the Third has done his best to perpetuate this superstition, which is far from dying out. In his last will, after recommending his son, the Prince Imperial, to 'penetrate himself' with the writings of the prisoner of St. Helena, he says: 'You must reflect that, from the Heavens on high, those whom you have loved look down on you and protect you. It is the soul of my Great Uncle that has always inspired and sustained me. It will be the same with my son, for he will be always worthy of his name.' To apply a familiar distinction-if they are now looking at all, they are more likely to be looking up than down, although the confident expectation of the adoring nephew seemed to be that he should be seated in Heaven alongside of the Great Uncle, like The Son on the right hand of The Father. of his inheritance. For some years after his death the succession was interrupted by the attainder of his brother, and a cloud obscured the fortunes of the family. They had to undergo the mortification of seeing the dukedom of Northumberland conferred on a Dudley; but he, too, getting attainted soon afterwards, the earldom was restored to the rightful heir, who, untaught by adversity, joined the rising of the North against Queen Elizabeth, and ended his life on the scaffold. He makes the seventh. The eighth was sent to the Tower for his exertions in favour of Mary Queen of Scots, and was shot or shot himself there. The ninth was fined 30,000l. and sentenced to imprisonment for life on a charge of being concerned in the Gunpowder Plot. The eleventh, the last male of the English branch, left an only daughter, whose career might match that of the most erratic or adventurous of her race. Before she was sixteen, she had been twice a widow and three times a wife. She was married at thirteen to the only son of the Duke of Newcastle, a lad of her own age, who died in a few months. Her second husband was Thynne of Longleat, Tom of Ten Thousand,'1 but the marriage was never consummated, and the tie was abruptly severed by the bullet of an assassin, set on by the notorious Count Königsmark, who had been a suitor for her hand, and was desirous of another chance. She then married the proud Duke of Somerset, and probably made him a fitting mate, for when his second wife, a Finch, tapped him familiarly on the shoulder, or, according to another version, seated her 1 So called from his being the reputed possessor of ten thousand a year. He had seduced a maid of honour, which, coupled with his incomplete marriage, gave rise to this epigram: 'Here lies Tom Thynne, of Longleat Hall, Had he married the woman he lay withal, |