f. **t HERALDIC ANOMALIES; OR, RANK CONFUSION IN OCR ORDERS OF PRECEDENCE. . WITH DISQUISITIONS, MORAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND HISTORICAL, ON ALL THE EXISTING ORDERS OF % SOCIETY. BY IT MATTERS NOT WHO. Otnne tulit puuotmn qui miscuit utile dulci Lectorem delectando pariterque monendo. UOKACV. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : G. AND W. B. WHITTAKER, AVE-MARIA-LANE. 1823. LONDON: PRINTED BY R. GILBERT, ST. JOHN'S SQUARF. PREFACE. I APPREHEND that Prefaces, wherever they may be placed in a book, are for the most part, with respect to the works them- selves, Postscripts; that is to say, written after the completion of the undertaking, whatever it may be as to this, my own Preface, I freely acknowledge it to be a postscript, and am indeed, anxious that it should be received as such, though I ven- ture, according to custom, to place it where it is. For I had much rather have it supposed, that what I now put into the hands of my readers, was written without any settled plan or design, and has imper- A 2 IV PREFACE. ceptibly swelled to the size it has attained, than that I did deliberately sit down to compose any such medley of strange things, with views and intentions admitting of preliminary explanation ; indeed, I hope my readers will have, all of them, sagacity enough to discover this, from the faulty arrangement of my work ; for I have no hesitation to declare, that if I had had it all ready when tbejirst sheets were sent to the press, I should probably have made the middle the beginning, the beginning the end, and the end the middle ; but it is too late now to remedy such blunders. I have in my title-page adopted two lines from Horace, which must not be mistaken for any compliment to myself, though I hope they will be judged to express pretty fairly the nature of my performance, which is decidedly a mixture of the grave and the gay of advice, and entertainment. But so PREFACE. V very much, both of the " delectando" and " monendo" parts, will be found to be bor- rowed from other authors, that the compli- ment, if any be suspected, must belong to them rather than to me. I may be allowed, I trust, to fancy my readers divided into the two classes men- tioned by the Spectator, the Mercurial and Saturnine; and upon this supposition, to express a hope, that when candidly considered, the most mercurial will not think my book too grave, nor the most sa- turnine, too gay that the serious parts of it will not be found to be insufferably stu- pid, nor the ludicrous parts altogether im- pertinent. It has been usual to compare the labours of such a miscellaneous writer as myself, to the toils and wanderings of the bee, fly- ing about, " To gather honey all the day, From every opening flower." Vi PREFACE. I shall not shrink from the comparison, if I may but be permitted to make one ob- servation before my readers ventureto taste my honey. Let me assure them then, that though it has undoubtedly been collected from a great variety of melliferous sources, it has not been gathered indiscriminately from " every opening flower." I have been careful to avoid all those literary rhodo- dendrons, kalmias, andromedas, Sec. which, according to certain discoveries in natural history, (see Edinburgh Review, No. LXXIII.) might be likely to yield more poison than sweets. America has generally had the credit of producing these mischiev- ous plants in greatest abundance, but I must confess that in my literary flights, I have found no want of them in the conserva- tories of Europe : whether the productions of Greece, Italy, Germany, Spain, France, or England. I would wish it to be understood PREFACE. Vll therefore, that in making my collections I have been very circumspect and cau- tious ; desiring above all things to prepare only such honey as might prove perfectly wholesome, and free from every deleterious mixture whatsoever. If I am to be set forth by comparisons, I should rather resemble myself to a man, who having mounted his favourite hobby- horse to ride about his own grounds in peace and quietness, had been unexpect- edly run away with, and carried so far beyond his original intentions, and his own home, as to be neither able nor very wil- ling to give much account of himself to by- standers. That my book will appear an odd one I doubt not, but the subject in ge- neral must be admitted to be grand if not sublime ; and if I should sometimes seem to be descending below its proper dignity, PREFACE. let it be recollected that Homer did not disdain to write upon frogs and mice; Vir- gil on a gnat; Lucian on a fly ; Apuleius on an ass ; Favorimis on a quartan ague; Synesius on baldness ; Erasmus on Folly ; Pope on a lock of hair ; Burns on a haggis, twa dogs, a calf, a mouse, and (as well as the clever but scurrilous Peter Pindar) on an animal still more obnoxious. The author of the Satires on the Love of Fame has some remarks in his Preface, which may well be adopted here. " No man," says he, " can converse much in the world, but at what he meets with, he must either be insensible, or grieve, or be angry or smile;" he does not say laugh in this place, but he adds it a little farther on. " Laughing at the world will in a great measure ease us of any more disagreeable passion about it;" and again, " Laughing PREFACE. IX Satire bids the fairest for success ; the world is too proud to be fond of a serious tutor." I beg that these things may be taken into consideration in judging of the following book; for I know there are many in the world constantly prepared to say, " of laughter it is mad ; and of mirth, what doeth it ? " but I am not one of that gloomy nature, though as great an enemy to any offen- sive merriment as if I belonged to the Society of Friends ; indeed, I could have made my book much more entertaining if I had felt no reserve upon this head ; for though this might not improperly be called the age of " reminiscences,'" and " recollec- tions" yet I have studiously suppressed many stories, sooner than run the risk of exposing improperly, either the living or the dead. The memory is truly a wonderful faculty, X PREFACE. highly worth cultivating, as Cato judged ; and we have certainly many memorable in- stances upon record of its extraordinary powers, as in the case of Cyrus, of Cineas, Mithridates, Themistocles, Appius Clau- dius, Hortensius, Seneca, Julius Caesar, &c. : but a spiteful memory, or even a party memory, if it pour forth its stories without delicacy or reserve, revivifying the dead for the express purpose of exposing blots and blemishes, of which the world at large was never before aware, or if it had been, would more willingly have forgotten ; so far from wishing to have such memories preserved and cultivated amongst us ; to the excess they have in some instances lately been, I could rather desire a river Lethe should flow through the land, or become one of our fashionable watering-places. Or, if this would not do, that all tittle-tattle reminiscents were in the way of eating sour PREFACE. Xi apples, keeping company with camels, look- ing upon things hanging, reading epitaphs, &c. ; which the Arabians assure us are in- fallible steps to an absolute loss of that mischievous faculty. Montaigne pays no great compliment to these " reminiscents," when he lays it down as a certain axiom, that " a great memory is generally coupled with a weak judg- ment :" but I question if he be right, from what we read of the Emperor Claudius, who having decidedly a weak judgment, had so short a memory, as not only to be in the habit of calling the next day for those very persons whom he had ordered to be ex- ecuted on the preceding evening, but abso- lutely sat up late one night, waiting for the Empress Messalina to come to bed, who had been made away with by his express directions not many hours before ! Having mentioned Montaigne, it may Xll PREFACE. not be amiss to notice his remark upon certain authors, of whom I myself perhaps may be one. He thinks there ought to be legal remedies provided against trifling and useless writers, as there are against vaga- bonds and sluggards. But a countryman of his own, has objected strongly to this ; the latter thinks, the publication of even the most useless and trifling books should be encouraged, " for," says he, " the worst cannot but be of some benefit to the na- tion. They afford a livelihood to a great many workmen in the metropolis ; and in the country they support many manufac- tories of paper, and consequently promote commerce." This also I beg may be con- sidered, if the following Work should be found trifling; useless, you see, it cannot be need I enumerate the number of persons to be served by it ? Passing by the prin- ters, whose claim to remuneration for their PREFACE. Xiii great care and trouble, is more direct and immediate, do but think of the miners, and preparers of the metal for types, the letter- founders, and cutters and casters ; the press- makers, carpenters, and makers of tools, as hammer s,Jiles, vices, gr avers, guages, punches; of moulds, matrices, fonts ; of the growers ofjftax and weavers of linen, collectors and venders of rags, with all the complicated machinery for forming them into paper. The persons concerned in the preparation of the ink, or procuring its materials, as lamp-black, oil But I stop wicked books may be as useful in this way, as trifling ones, so that I shall press this consideration no farther, but hope, that let my book be ever so trifling, it may yet, in other re- spects, be of some service ; for if it make any thin readers laugh, they will be likely to grow fat ; if it amuse the sulky or testy, they may grow good-humoured : if it be- XIV PREFACE. guile the time for the sick, the old, or the decrepid, they will feel their infirmities the less ; if it inform the ignorant, they will become more agreeable : if it help the ge- nerality of the world to understand and keep their proper stations and places, it may, we would hope, do much to blunt those " little stings and thorns in life," (as the Tatler calls the niceties and punctilios of society) " that make it more uneasy than its most substantial evils." No author must expect to please every body some may be so formed as not to be capable of being pleased : when Cardinal Richelieu told Godeau that he did not un- derstand his verses, " that is not my fault," said the honest poet. While we remain upon the surface of this earth, heraldry is an amusing game to play at. It is a game indeed that cannot last for ever. Being in this, like enough PREFACE. XV to the noble game of Chess, of which an old writer has well observed, there is no one game which may seem to represent the state of man's life so full and well ; "for there you shall find Princes and Beggars, and persons of all conditions, ranked in their proper and peculiar places ; yet when the game is done, they are all thrust up in a bag together ; and where then appears any difference betwixt the poorest beggar and the potentest peer. The like may be ob- served in this stage of human frailty : while we are here set to shew, during the chess- game of this life, we are according to our several ranks esteemed, and fit it should be so : for else should all degrees be promis- cuously confounded : but no sooner is the game done, the thread of our short life spun, than we are thrown into a bag, a poor winding sheet, for that is all that we must carry with us ; where there shall be XVI PREFACE. no difference betwixt the greatest and the least, the highest and lowest ; for then it shall not be asked how much we had, but how we disposed of that we had." I have plainly told my readers in my title-page that " it matters not WHO," really wrote the book. To this also I must beg of them to attend, and civilly to con- clude, that I wish not to be enquired after. If they should find me out it can do them no good, and if they should mistake, others may be harmed. I do not feel bound even to say how far I may be interested in the success of the work. ' If I should be above want, I have taken pains to shew, that there are many others who may be benefited by its sale and circulation, and as the author of the Fortunes of Nigel, has lately well ob- served, no profit in such cases, can be drawn from the public but in the shape of PREFACE. XV11 a voluntary tax, and that in all likelihood from those who can well afford it. " No man of sense," as that acute and success- ful writer adds, " in any rank of life, is or ought to be above accepting a just recom- pence for his time, and a reasonable share of capital, which owes its very exist- ence to his exertions. When Czar Peter wrought in the trenches, he took the pay of a common soldier; and Nobles, States- men, and Divines have not scrupled to square accounts with the bookseller. " O if it were a mean thing, The Gentles would not use it ; And if it were ungodly, The Clergy would refuse it." The circumstances of an author indeed have still less to do with the merit of a book than the name. Some of the most eminent writers of antiquity were exposed VOL. i. b XV111 PREFACE. to very severe distresses. Plautus turned a mill ; Terence was a slave ; Boethius died in prison ; Tasso was often distressed for a few^ shillings ; Bentivoglio was refused ad- mission into the hospital he himself erect- ed ; Cervantes died of .hunger ; Camoens ended his days in an alms-house or infir- mary ; and Vaugelas left his body to the surgeons to pay his debts as far as it would go. However, thus far I will let my rea- ders into the secret ; I am neither a Plau- tus, a Terence, a Tasso, or a Boethius ; so that they may spare themselves the pains of looking for me among such gifted ge- niuses neither need they go to St. BeneCs Hill to look for me, for though I have ven- tured to treat of ranks, titles, and distinc- tions, &c. I am no member of the Heralds' College ; never saw it indeed in all my life. I may truly say, what old Dugdale seems to have said almost in joke, consi- PREFACE. dering his station, " I profess not heral- drie, non equidem tali me dignor honor e, to marciall any man's ranke." I have only thrown out hints, endeavouring always to keep within my depth. To the ladies who may condescend to read my book, (as I hope many will,) I have certainly apologies to make for the introduction of more Greek and Latin than is commonly to be found in works of mere amusement, and I am the more inclined to do so here, that they may not fancy them- selves imposed upon by a few such hin- drances and impediments. I should wish to observe, before I con- clude this Postscript of a Preface, that though the Errata, strictly so called, are very few, and might almost be left to the candour of the reader, without any formal notice of them, yet some things have oc- curred, and others come to my knowledge, b2 XX PREFACE. while the work has been passing through the press, which I should like to throw together in the form of Addenda, or Corri- genda, if my book were likely not to reach a second edition, and for which therefore I claim allowances, in case it should be so. The Marriage Act for instance, alluded to p. 103, Vol. ii. has since been repealed; I have found that an arrangement took place with regard to the particular rank of his Majesty's Attorney and Solicitor Ge- neral in 1814, of which I was not aware, till after Section XVII. was printed off; nor that the Serjeant's Coif was anciently spelt Quoif, which makes a material differ- ence in regard to a story there related. In p. 14, Vol. i. I have inadvertently applied the title of Viscountess to a Peeress who (I ought to have recollected) had recently been advanced to the rank of a Countess ; I have spelt the same name differently in PREFACE. XXl different places, as Sir Roger de Coverly, sometimes also Coverley ; and Buonaparte sometimes Bonaparte. For the first, I have to state, that in my own edition of the Spectator, it is actually spelt differently in the book and in the index ; and as to the latter, I was not sufficiently aware, till reminded of it in the Quarterly Review of Mr. O'Meara's Voice from St. Helena, that the omission of the u was probably a matter of trick or deliberate contrivance, on the part of the Ex-Emperor himself. Had I recollected this in time, I should certainly have been more guarded. These and a few other mistakes I should have liked to have had an opportunity of correcting in time; nor am I without a desire already of adding many newly collected materials, should an opportunity be afforded me ; so that I hope it will not be thought unreasonable in me to conclude with the following XX11 PREFACE. requests to my readers ; first, that if they should happen to like my book, and should find nothing really bad in it, they will have the goodness to render it scarce by burning it as soon as they have read it ; and secondly, be careful afterwards to say to every body they meet, by way of set- ting them agog for another edition, " HAVE YOU READ HERALDIC ANOMALIES ?" with a very, very strong emphasis on the word " have.;' so may I be able to render the work, such as it is, much more complete hereafter, and greatly augment the profits of my respectable, industrious, and inge- nious coadjutors already enumerated, to the manifest behoof and advantage of every one of them, I had almost said, down to the very D-v-il ! CONTENTS or VOL. I. Introductory 1 Lady 13 Lord 22 Captain 29 Doctor 36 Titles 47 Attributes and significant Titles 82 Pope Holiness 119 Sovereign 127 Peers' Daughters 138 Nobility 143 Ancient Nobility 158 Names 171 Christian Names 208 Marquess 219 Bishops 223 Law 236 Baronets 260 Knights 273 ERRATA. VOL. I. PAG. LIN. 35, 11, for while, read where 44, 7, for below those above, whom, read below those, above whom 51, 19, for Grand Monarch, read Grand Monarque 72, 17, for ceremonins, read ceremonies 83, 8, 9, for Ducal Archiepiscopal, read Dncal and Archiepis- copal 88, 4, for que, read * -. j$& ^j " Equality, so oft addrest, Canst thou o'er wretched mortals reign ? Alas ! Thou ne'er hast stood the test, Chimaera beasted bat in vain." What ranks, orders, and distinctions were there not to be found in the ancient Mythology ? The religion of monarchies, aristocracies, republics, and democracies ? Take the account of the fa- mous anatomist of melancholy. " The Ro- mans," saith he; " who borrowed from all may serve for an instance. Their deities were, as Varro saith, majorum et minorum gentium ; great and small, certain and uncertain, some celestial, select and high ones ; others indigites and semi- 8 INTRODUCTORY, Dei ; Lares, Lemures, Dioscuri, Soteres and Pa- rastata, Dii tutelares amongst the Greeks : gods of all sorts, for all functions ; some for the land ; some for sea ; some for heaven, some for hell ; some for passions, diseases ; some for birth, some for weddings, husbandry, woods, waters, gar- dens, orchards, &c. : all actions and offices ; Pax, Quies, Salus, Libertas, Felicitas, Strenua, Stimula, Horta, Pan, Sylvanus, Priap*, Flora, Cloacina, Stercutius, Febris, Pallor, Invidia, Protervia, Risus, Angerona, Volupia, Vacuna, Veneranda, &c. &c. For all intents, places, creatures they assigned gods. " Et domibus, tectis, thermis, et eqttis soleatis, Assignare solent genios " saith Prudentius. Cuna for cradles; Diverra for sweeping houses ; Nodiria Knots ; Prema, Hy- men, Hymeneus for Weddings; Comus the god of good fellows ; gods of silence, of comfort ; Hebe, goddess of youth. Hesiod reckons up at least 30,000 gods, Varro 300 Jupiters. . & . . . Quit-quid Humus, pelagus, crrlum miserabile gignit, Id dixcre decs Colles, freta, flmnina, llammas : r^v^r.^, , ri , *^.>,I A . n , f xn .. ,:,..,- Whatever heavens, sea, and land begat, Hills, seas, and rivers, God was this or that. INTRODUCTORY. As this book is likely to have its birth in the days of radicalism, I have felt desirous, in enter- ing upon heraldic discussions, to obviate all sus- picions of my being an enemy, not merely to liberty and equality, but to the democratic branches of our admirable constitution. I will go a step further ; I shall even declare myself not unwilling to adopt the principles of the foreign radicals, the Carbonari of Naples, pro- vided they will be content to abide by what they have set forth, in a remonstrance addressed to the present Pope Pius VII. so short a time ago, as in the month of September 1820 ; and in which, if I mistake not, I discover a very fair outline at least, of the happy government under which we live " the conduct which is inculcated in the education of the Carbonari" (I wish they may speak true) is precisely the practice of the morality of the Gospel It is true that such a so- ciety has apolitical object; but this is not in the slightest degree contrary to the maxims of reli- gion. It preserves that respect to the sovereign, which the apostle requires from Christians; it loves the sovereign, it preserves the state, and even the succession of families. But it supports a democracy, which instead of offending mo" 10 narchy, forms that happy addition to it, which endears it more to the nation, and which alone can render the rights of the empire and those of the citizen less fluctuating, and which therefore prevents political disorders by constitutional means, and consolidates the true basis of uar tional felicity, a feliciity to which the Christian religion directly leads those nations that have the glory to profess it." Now, though the catechisms, mentors, circulars, patents and emblems of the Italian Carbonari, may seem to breathe a different spirit, and to be couched in language more approaching to that of perfect independence and equality, yet it is sufficient for my purposes to shew, that while, perhaps, they feel such principles to be adverse to the general opinions of the world, and the sentiments of enlightened statesmen, they are not ashamed to profess another object, which is no less than that of reforming the present corrupt governments of Europe, by infusing a certain portion of democracy into the existing monarchies of the continent, by way of consolidating the true basis of national felicity, preventing poli- tical disorders by constitutional means, and binding the whole together, by the fixed rules INTRODUCTORY. and obligations of Christian morality, and Chris- tian obedience to the lawful sovereign;. ' Such a view of matters, so far as it goes, ac- cords so exactly with the leading principles of our own constitution, that I am glad to avail myself of the testimony of such professed re- formers, to its merits, before I enter upon my heraldic lucubrations, in which I hope it will be discovered, that though I am an advocate for distinctions of rank, I am not so blindly attached to the system as to make too much of titles, or be unmindful, either of that natural equality which belongs to us a& men, or of that political Equality which our excellent constitution recog- nises amidst all her heraldic distinctions, to as great a degree perhaps as it is possible to do, without a total departure from her own equally established principles, of a limited monarchy, and an hereditary aristocracy. Thus much by way of Introduction. After all however that has been said, distinction of ranks is not so much or so immediately the subject of my present undertaking, as confusion of ranks. There are many things tending to such confusion in our present institutions, which if they cannot be corrected, ought at least to be explained. I 12 INTRODUCTORY. shall instance in the first place, certain anoma- lies and strange circumstances arising out of a community of titles, one title serving for many purposes, whereby in vulgar estimation, dignities and ranks often come to be confounded, and many individuals appear to be defrauded as it were, of their proper honors. I know it to be an established maxim, that there are more things in the world, than there are names for them, ac- cording to the saying of the philosopher, " No- mina sunt Jinita, res autem infinite, ideo unum no- men plura significat" But that this is calculated to produce great confusion, and should there- fore, as far as possible, be avoided, especially in regard to titles of honor, which were cer- tainly above all things meant for distinction the most certain and particular, it will be my en- deavour to shew ; and for civility sake as well as to illustrate my meaning, by as clear an instance as I could produce, I shall begin this part of my subject, (which I foresee will be almost in- exhaustible,) with the title of LADY. " Place aux Dames." IT is surely odd that the titles of " Lady" and " Ladyship," should reach from a Duchess to the Lady Mayoress of York ; a Marchioness is, in common conversation often called only Lady such a one, and your Ladyship is the very highest term of respect you can apply to her when ad- dressing her. It is the same with Countesses, Viscountesses and Baronesses. It is true that their titles being generally the names of places, may in most instances bespeak them connected with the peerage ; but this is not the case with all. Some peers' names and titles are the same. Lady Stafford, Lady Bath, Lady Cardigan, Lady Pembroke, &c. might not perhaps be mistaken, though indeed the names of places are often the names of persons too, as shall be shewn ; but be- sides this, even as to titles derived from places, it requires some knowledge of heraldry, or the opportunity of mingling with the first company, to be able to distinguish between the Marchioness of, or Lady Hertford, the Countess of, or Lady 14 LADY. Derby, Viscountess or Lady Falmouth, Baroness or Lady Sherborne. That there may be places and persons of the same name is evident, as lately, t u Lady Salisbury, (a Marchioness.) Lady Salisbury, (a Baronet's Lady.) Lady Ashburnham, (a Countess.) : Lady Ashburnham, (a Baronet's Lady.) Lady Chichester, (a Countess.) j i-JLady Chichester, (a Baronet's Lady.) Most of the Barons of England have names for their titles. I remember A Lady Clive,. (a Peeress.) A Lady Clive, (a Judge's Lady.) A Lady St. John, (a Peeress.) A Lady St. John, (a Baronet's Lady.) A Lady St. John, (a Knight's Lady.) Two Ladies Rivers. Two Ladies Middleton. Two Ladies Onslow. Three Ladies Howe. Viz. ,-. . >., \ .^ jr c IT -J j i i i J j f- . * t \ > i t i . > ... A Countess, A Baroness in her own right, and the Lady of a Knight of the Bath. JLADY. 15 Several Ladies Grey. Viz. A Marchioness, A Countess, A Baroness, A Baronet's Lady, and a Knight's Lady^ d-> I do not mean to say that these Ladies are often likely to be so confounded, because the highest move in too exalted a sphere to be. mis- taken by those with whom they associate, and they have various other means of distinction, as coronets, armorial bearings, visiting cards, &c. but heraldry is a confined knowledge ; very few indeed know any thing at all about it, and after all I am proposing to treat rather of the possi- bility of mistakes, than of actual mistakes; not of what does really happen, but of what might or may happen from titles of so vague a descrip- tion. A Lady B. an apothecary's wife, not very long ago, as I have been told, went to pass some time at a public place. On her first ar- rival, either out of ignorance or vanity, she en- tered her name, in those ledgers of information, the library and subscription books, Lady (Mary) B. Mary was her name undoubtedly, and Lady was her title, but it sent all the rest of the com* 16 LADY. pany to their pocket peerages, to hunt her out, and quite in vain. The Master of. the Cere- monies himself, could not tell whether the new comer, was to take place as a tyarchioness, a Countess, or a Viscountess, (for as a Lady Mary, such might have been her rank,) but most for- tunately before the ball night, he discovered that she was in truth only an apothecary's Lady, brand new from the apotheca, or shop ; her hus- band having been knighted upon carrying up an address as Mayor of a certain corporation. Now as every Knight may have a Lady, or rather ought to have one, for according to the rules of chivalry, " a Knight without a Lady, is like a fiddle without a bridge, a body without a head, a soldier without a sword, a monkey without a tail, a lady without a glass, a glass without a face, a face without a nose," it is surely fit that certain Knights' ladies, should know who they really are ; for whatever the husbands may be, their wives " must be called my Lady" as Don Quixote observes, " though it should make ever so many hearts ake." All Knights' ladies be- sides, having (in this Christian country) Chris- tian names as well as Lady Mary B., it may be well for them to understand, that, though they LADY. 17 may participate in the honours of their husbands as far as regards the SIR-Names of their titled consorts, they must on no account pretend to be Christians, by calling themselves Ladies, Jane, Sarah, Bridget, or by any other baptismal names that may happen to belong to them. But in this case, omission oftentimes occasions as much confusion as insertion. Those who really are Ladies, (Mary, Elizabeth, or Caroline, for in- stance,) are sure to be despoiled of their honor by trades-people, and others of lower condition, who, in speaking of them, invariably omit the Christian name ; especially when such ladies of high birth have married commoners, and quitted their father's family. Lady Mary White infal- libly becomes only Lady White ; Lady Elizabeth Green, Lady Green ; Lady Caroline Brown, Lady Brown, which is a grievous degradation ; amount- ing in heraldry to the difference perhaps of not less than Five degrees of rank. Of Knights 7 ladies, the wives of Judges seem to stand in the strangest predicament. They are Knights' ladies only it is true, but their husbands take place of Baronets, and are " Honourable ;" on which account Judges have been known to decline the honor of knighthood, but his late VOL. I. C 18 LADY. Majesty, who liked old customs, was not pleased that they should do so. It has indeed been as- serted, and it may be found in some of our orders of precedence, that the wives of Privy-^ Councillors, Judges, &c. are to take the same place as their husbands do ; but I question whether any Judge's lady would attempt this. In France the wives of those who had official dignity, used formerly not only to be allowed the same precedency as their husbands, but to take the official title also, as Madame la Presi~ dente, Madame la Chanceliere, &c. An English Judge does not willingly call himself by his title of knighthood; he knows his highest title to be that of Mr. Justice A. or B., though this latter evidently makes him, in the estimation of the vulgar, but a Justice of Peace, while his Knight's title, which he studiously suppresses, might raise both him and his Lady, in sound at least, as high as a Baronet and his Lady ; the Judge himself, in his official capacity actually taking place all the while, of a Baronet. This then is ah heraldic inconsistency, and occasions both confusion and mistake. I remember a Judge's widow who laid aside her doubtful title of Lady, upon marrying a Captain in the navy, while LADY. 19 another, who married a Bishop, retained it; adding thereby something of eclat to the head of a table, where a plain Mrs. would otherwise have presided. Not that I do in the least mean to. insinuate that this was the object, for inde- pendent of her title, she was a person both of family and fortune ; but in retaining it, she did that, which the former Lady, must have relin^ qwshed, upon totally different feelings. A Judge of the Exchequer, though inferior to the other puisne Judges, has a much higher sounding title; being always called Baron; a title not only noble as applied to modern Peers, but as originally given to the Exchequer Judges them- selves, who were, in past times, all proper Barons of England. Their Ladies, however, are still only Knights' Ladies. I shall have more to say about Knights soon; at present I confine myself to the mere title of Lady, which seems to be too general, and to have in it too little of discrimination, with regard to our own order of precedence. I might, however, in all likelihood go much higher in regard to this title; even to the QUEEN or '" Cwen," wife, amongst our Saxon ances- tors ; who was also it seems, frequently called c-2 20 LADY. Hlafdige; whence, (I know not how, but anti- quarians insist upon it) the English word, " Lady," in Latin Domina, is derived. It is not very long since, that our Princesses, were called " Ladies." The Lady Louisa, Mary, Augusta, &c. Princess is better for the very reason I have stated ; the too comprehensive signification of the term " Lady." Having had occasion to mention the term " Domina" I shall notice another anomaly in heraldry much connected with all that has pre- ceded. DAME from Domina, is the highest title, and the lowest title given to women in many dif- ferent languages ; in old writings it is generally put for " Lady," amongst ourselves ; in French it is the queen at chess and at cards ; in common speech, it is applied to the Queen's maids of ho- nour, Dames d'honneur, and ladies of the bed- chamber ; and yet, though so courtly in these instances, it is also, as with us, the very lowest female title. In Chambaud's French Dictionary, you will find the following contradictory expla- nations of the term DAME. [Titre que Von donne par honneur aux femmes de qualit'tl\ DAME, [Espece de titre quon donne aux femmes de la plus basse condition.} Was ever any thing so strange ? LADY. 21 The instances in the last case happen to be both French and English. Dame, Jeanne. Goody, Jane. Madam, a term we use in addressing even a Queen, is only, my Dame, or my Lady. Ma- dame Mea Domina of which Ball Puppy, in Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub, has made more than he need to do ; " Oh Dame ! and Fellows o'the kitchen ! Ann, Arm for my safety ; if you love your Ball : Here is a strange thing call'd a Lady, a MAD-DAME." Dr. Watts, in his logic, notices the changes that have taken place amongst ourselves, in regard to the word Dame; but in French its signification is absolutely contradictory in more cases than one. " Faire une Dame," at the game of chess, is to make a Queen ; at the game of draughts, " Faire une Dame," is to make a King: " une dame dam6e," at draughts is a crowned King; in common speech, a toping lady. L ORD. THE title of " Lord," is as common as the title of " Lady." Even a Duke is not always called " My Lord Duke ;" a Marquess, seldom, if ever, " My Lord Marquess;" " My Lord Earl," has never I think been used, nor are Viscounts and Barons at all distinguished in company. So that " my Lord," and " your Lordship," may fairly be said to be in use, from the first Marquess in the king's dominions, to the Lord Mayor of York, .Lord Provost" of Edinburgh and Glasgow, Lord Rectors, Lord Register, Lord Advocate of Scotland, &c. &c. &c. of whose honours and distinctions I do certainly 'not mean to speak with the slightest disrespect, but only in the way of illustration. By persons much conversant with the world ; much in the way of great coiripany ; the confu- sion would scarcely be understood or acknow- ledged : in courtly companies the difference of rank is generally too well known, to require any further discrimination, but it is surprising how very little of these matters is known a step LORD. 23 below the rank of nobility. Nay, I can venture to assert, that few even of the nobility are he- ralds. I have been in the way of seeing persons of the highest rank, puzzled by some of the simplest questions concerning their own titles, families, privileges, and armorial bearings ; I sel- dom meet with any persons, not conversant with the great, who know even the coronets of the Peers, one from another ; and yet lieraldry is very easy to learn, and I can venture to say, would be found to be a continual source of amusement. Perhaps many of our greatest LORDS, are not aware, that to be proper Lords, they are bound to be liberal and charitable, to deal out their bread to the hungry, and satisfy the empty soul : we are told by Lexicographers, that just so much is implied in the very term LORD ; the Saxon definition of which, runs thus Plapopib or lofojib of Plaj: a loaf and ford or afford, because lords and noblemen gave loaves to a certain num- ber of poor. Heralds however seem to consider the etymology of this title as extremely doubt- ful to this moment. Some will tell you we have it from Burgundy, some from Denmark; that they are the German Free-herenj the Saxon 24 LORD. Thaunes ; the Italian -Signori ; the French Seig- neurs, Sieurs ; Latin Seniores ; Persian Seic, Shfick, Xec or Cheque ; Scottish Laird, &c. It matters not, whence it is derived, or to what other titles it bears an affinity, it is evidently too ge- neral and indiscriminate as a British title. Our Judges are Lords upon the bench, and especially upon their circuits, where, as the immediate representatives of the King, they take place of all other Lords. The Lords of Session in Scot- land, are not only called Lords, in their judicial capacity, but are allowed to add a title of their own ; generally, I believe, taken from their country seats or paternal property. Every body has heard of Lord Monboddo, few know that he was Mr. Burnet ; Lord Kames (Mr. Home.) Lord Woodhouselee scarcely any body in these southern parts might think he knew ; but if you were to mention Professor Tytler, all would know him directly, who were attached to the study of his- tory. Here then this high title would seem to operate rather as a title of confusion or .obscu- rity, than of distinction in the case of persons otherwise eminent. If the title prevail, the family name is lost, if the name prevail, the title is thrown away, not being a title of inheritance, LORD/ 25 but merely the distinction of an individual. As an official title, it appears to be quite thrown away on our Lords of the Treasury, Admiralty, &c. ; who seem to be Lords only when they are spoken of, not when they are spoken to. I have not attempted to compare our English title of " Lord," with the Hebrew Adon, or Adonai, Greek Ki/gior, or Latin Dominus, though the translators of the Bible seem to have re- garded it as an equivalent, and in one instance adopted the feminine " Lady," as the rendering of Ki/gta, 2 John i. But though the term be sy- nonymous, I cannot see how it is derived either from the Greek or Latin; and it seems to be almost an etymological quibble to connect it, as some do, with the Hebrew, for they would have us think that there is a close connection between the Hebrew Adon, which comes from Eden, and the Saxon Hlaford; BECAUSE, Eden signifies a base or a pillar, which sustaineth any thing ; and Hlaford signifies giving a loaf of bread, which may help to sustain the life of man ! However, to shew the tricks that may be played by too common a title, however sanctified by particular cases, I shall venture to cite a political squib, 26 LORD. written in the year 1745, by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, which has certainly a good deal of humour in it, and could scarcely be intended to be profane. i. " Some think Lord Cart'ret bears the sway, And rules the kingdom and the King ; The Lord of Bath do others say, And others swear 'tis 110 such thing ! II. That 'tis Lord Wilmington no doubt, Directs the nation, Gary boasts ; But in their guesses they're all out, We're govern'd by the L d of Hosts. III. A moment's patience, and I'll prove The argument I'm now pursuing ; Who is there, but the L d above, That knoweth what this nation's doing ? IV. Whether the war goes on with Spain, (In which so many Britons fell,) And what our fleets do on the main, The L d, and he alone, can tell. '' ~ ' - -V. '-' The L d, and he alone, doth knovy, How taxes will be rais'd this year, The L d knows how much 'tis we owe, Wllicli the L d knows when we shall clear. LORD. 27 \m its- vi. The L d knows how our army'll fare, We're govern'd by the L d knows who ; Our King is gone the L d knows where, And the L d knows what we shall do !" As uncourtly persons are apt to be aukward in the use of such appellatives as the titles of Lord or Lordship, often inserting them too fre- quently in their addresses, they would do well to look into the 204th, Number of the Tatler, where they will find some excellent rules laid down for their accommodation ; and be taught to reserve such titles for dignified purposes only. They may talk of his Lordship's favour, his Lord- ship's judgment, his Lordship's patronage, &c., as much as they please, but not of his Lord- ship's wig, cane, hat ; his Lordship's thumb, nose, elbow, or great toe ! The paper is altogether a very good one, and in more ways than one, ap- plicable to the subject we have in hand. I cannot dismiss this section without observ- ing that hunch-backed, and crooked persons, have often the title of Lord conferred on them. The reason of this should be understood, lest we should fancy such deformities to be among the proper characteristics of nobility ; which 28 LORD. might well happen, if looking to the hunch- backs, we were to adopt the French interpreta- tion of the term Lordly, viz. one who carries himself high; " Qui se porte haut:" but the appellation, as applied to crooked persons, hap- pens not to be, (what I doubt not most people imagine,) mere vulgar English, but pure Greek. Lordos (AogSoy) signifying in the latter tongue crooked or bent, curvus. If there be a punish- ment in our laws for scandal um magiiatum; I think some reward is due to me for saving our Lords from such a reproach. CAPTAIN. I SHALL next offer a few remarks on the Title of " Captain." I think I have heard it called a travelling title, as being easily assumed, and giving some air of importance to whoever bears it. And certainly many do bear it, whose sta- tions in the world are very different. There are Captains of Frigates, and Captains of Steam- packets ; Captains of the Navy and Captains of the Army. And in war-time we generally know them apart. But when the blue coats and red coats are laid aside, who can any longer be ex- pected to distinguish them by their mere names or appearance ? And yet there is this wide dif- ference between them, a Captain in the army ranks below a Major, while the lowest Captain in the Navy (a master and commander for in- stance) has the rank of a Major in the Army; a Post-Captain that of Lieutenant-Colonel ; and after three years, that of a full Colonel. But this difference, under the same title, bears par- ticularly hard upon the gentlemen of the navy ; from the circumstances of age. It must be something to have risen high in such active pro- 30 CAPTAIN. fessions at an early age ; it must be proportion- ally mortifying to bear the marks of age with- out promotion. Yet what ordinary person could guess, when he hears four individuals in com- pany, each called " Captain," two perhaps rather advanced in years, one in middle life, and one a smart dashing young man, that they were not all Captains in the same degree. How 'could he be brought to fancy, that the latter only '(Cap- tain D. for instance) was really a Captain; while Captain A. was a Colonel, Captain B. a Lieute- nant-Colonel, and Captain C. a Major? Might he not blunder so far as to suppose the fyoungest man the best Captain of all, as having attained to that rank so early in life, while the latter had been standing still, or through want of merit, or want of interest, (which I am sorry to say, is want of merit in many people's eyes,) had missed of farther promotion? I have been in the way of feeling for persons in this situation ? Where the young military Captain in his red coat, (being on full pay and on duty in peace time) and de- corated with honors, for one or two campaigns, has drawn the attention of the whole company, while the much more experienced, but modest Naval Captain in his brown coat, scarcely at- tracted any notice at all. Lieutenant is a title CAPTAIN. 31 seldom used in company, otherwise what has been said of the naval and military Captain, would equally apply to the Lieutenants. The titles being the same, but the ranks different ; a Lieutenant in the Navy having, in fact, the rank of a Captain in the Army. In France, if I mistake not, these things are managed better ; their Naval Officers having mi- litary titles, as well as military rank ; their Ad- mirals being Generals*, &c. : It would seem preposterously absurd to associate a Colonel with a military Serjeant, but let the former be in company with a Serjeant at Law,, and their rank would be equal ; and yet one would be dis- tinguished from the other only as Colonel A, and Serjeant B. ; or Serjeant A. and Colonel B. Even our title of General was once very strangely mistaken, and by no less a personage than the celebrated King of Prussia, Frederic II. It happened thus. * With regard to their highest military title of all however Ma- rexhal, there is a hazard of mistaking a General for a Farrier, the title or name being common to both, though, as applied to one or the other, said to be differently derived. In the former case, from Mare, a Fiancic word, denoting great or honourable, and Scale, a servant; in the latter case from Mare, a horse, and the same word Scale. 32 CAPTAIN. A great intimacy and friendship, private as well as political, subsisted between the late Lord Ash n (Mr. D g) and Colonel Barre. They travelled to the continent together, and chanced to arrive at Berlin or Potzdam (I forget which) exactly at the time of a grand review. Being particularly desirous of seeing it, they found means to be presented to the King on the very ground ; as two Englishmen of distinction, and members of the British Parliament. Colonel Barre as Colonel Barre, and D g as the King's Solicitor General. Frederic knew enough of Colonels and Generals, to be caught by the sound of such titles, never dreaming that in this particular instance they were not equally mili- tary. War-horses, richly caparisoned, were im- mediately offered to the English Colonel and General, and of necessity accepted. The Colonel rode like a Colonel, but the General no better than any other Solicitor-General, and very un- like what the Prussian troops, and Frederic him- self had been accustomed to see in the field. The horse besides on which he rode, being under the same mistake, as his royal master, was not sparing of his military movements, to the no small embarrassment of his law-full rider, who CAPTAIN. 33 being quite unused to such actions, had a hard difficulty to keep his seat, and in going through the various mano3uvres, which he had no means of controlling, afforded considerable amusement to the company at large. It is obvious that a similar mistake, arising from the community of titles, mighfhave brought the General of any Ca- tholic religious order into a like scrape, though under circumstances, if possible, of still greater incongruity. There is no provision made for distinguishing in company, The Admiral from The Rear, or the Vice-Admiral, The General from the Major or Lieutenant General. I do not indeed think this necessary myself ; but if they be positive distinctions of rank, there seems to be a want of precision in not making them manifest. The Officers in the Foot Guards have a rank assigned them, above their titles. This also is an anomaly that deserves to be noticed. A Lieu- tenant in the Guards is a Captain in the army 5 a Captain a Major, a Major a Lieutenant Colo- nel, and so on. VOL. i. i> 34 CAPTAIN. In our orders of precedence, Naval and Mi- litary rank is a good deal overlooked. Generally we find the first mention of them under the title of " Colonels," to whom is assigned the same rank as to Doctors and Serjeants at Law. Those of lower degree being nearly at the bottom of the list, amongst the inferior Clergy, Barristers, &c. : in some orders of precedence certainly I find, Flag and Field Officers placed between Knights of the Bath and Knights Bachelors, but how far this is right, I cannot pretend to say. In the Naval department there are what they call yellow Admirals, or superannuated Captains, who consist generally, I believe, of persons passed by rather out of pique than propriety, and who, if the truth were known, are likely enough to be neither superannuated, nor profes- sionally at all unworthy of being full or com- plete Admirals. I am glad that at all events they get the title, which has considerable weight with the world, and is seldom enquired into. It would not be amiss if this regulation extended to other professions ; if we had, that is, yellow Generals, yellow Judges, and yellow Bishops, as well as yellow Admirals, or green Generals, orange- CAPTAIN. 35 coloured Judges, and blue Bishops, for the colour itself matters not ; but it' is not preposterous to suppose that there are many who never come to be called either Generals, Judges, or Bishops, who deserve the titles, at least, quite as much as some who really have both the titles and the offices, and who merit to be higher in their re- spective professions, if there were but room for them. An old author, Nathan Citraus, writeth, that in Prague, an University of Bohemia, while John Huss and Jerome of Prague were professors, those who had continued professors for the space of twenty years together, were created Earls and Dukes, and were styled illustres, whereas they that were singly and simply Earls or Dukes, were called spectabiles. Nor, (says he) doth it make any matter that taey have no revenues to main- tain Earldoms or Dukedoms* for they have the title notwithstanding, even as suffragans have of Bishops. D 2' DOCTOR. I PROCEED next to the rank and title of Doctor. There are Doctprs of Divinity, Doctors of Law, Doctors of Physic, and Doctors of Music. But, who is to know one from the other by the mere title? a D.D. is scarcely any longer to be dis- tinguished by his black coat, for black coats are become as common as those of any other colour, and the Bishop's wig reaches not a step now below the Bench. The Physician's wig is also laid aside, and a Doctor of Law may be any thing, or any body, Lay or Clerical ; Noble or Ignoble ; British or Foreign. Some of our Bishops are only Doctors of Law ; and many of our Doctors of Law might just as well belong to any other faculty. But these things relate to the great world only. In the country there is incessant confu- sion. In the country, the title of Doctor is almost exclusively confined to the Village Apothecary or Accoucheur ; perhaps the Farrier may attain to the same nominal dignity. The Physician is never called Doctor ; he is invariably Mr. with the DOCTOR. 37 c6mmon people. The Village Apothecary THE Doctor XT' eox*?v, as they say in Greek. Unless indeed the Rector or Vicar of the parish should be a D. D., and in this case, a worse mistake is to be apprehended ; a mistake which might be actually fatal to body or soul. The Apothecary for instance might be called to administer the comforts of religion in extremis at one end of the parish, while the poor D.D. might be roused from his slumbers in the middle of the night, to a case of midwifery at the other. In both in- stances, THE Doctor might be sent for without farther discrimination, though the proper func- tions of the two were as widely different, as be- tween helping an old person out of the world, and bringing a young one into it. Not that, after all, even the Village Apothecary is accounted the best Doctor in a country district ; his pre-emi- nence is generally disputed by most of the old women in the place, who are sure to have nos- trums for every kind of malady, and for the most part, rate the abilities of the Doctor very low. It has often surprized me, that so much con- fidence in matters of pharmacy and medicine, should be placed in these old ladies ; but I am 38 POCTOR. not sure that there is. not to be found in history a very good reason for it. In remote times, and in all Catholic countries, the care of the sick and wounded fell chiefly upon the religious or- ders of nuns, &c. : who really possessed as much skill as the times admitted of. Dr. Beddoes, who had .a. spite against these village matrons, for their interference in medical cases, commends the wisdom and discernment of the people for not trusting them farther ; for not suffering them, that is, to perform chirurgical operations. But ip. the dark ages, the females of the religious or- ders practised surgery as well as medicine, and .no less a personage than the renowned Robin Hood, by trusting one too far, was bled to death. jgfo Jol "/But, (not unseldom,) the Village Farrier is also a Doctor; In such parishes therefore there may be three Doctors. One having the cure of bodies ; another the cure of souls ; and a third, the cure of horses, Wws, and asses. And it is fifty to one, but that, in an agricultural district, the latter may possess the highest credit of all. I remember a man with a bad leg, who resisted all my offers of procuring him surgical aid, from a most celebrated practitioner in a neighbouring DOCTOR. 39 town. He had put himself under the care of his old crony the Farrier. Upon my expressing some doubts of his competency, the man de- clared he would trust him sooner than any Doc- tor in the whole country, or even London, espe- cially for the cure of bad legs. " It was only t'other day," said he, " that Master W.'s horse had as bad a leg as was ever seen ; but on be- ing brought to him, he whipped in some of his oils, and cured him in a jiffy." Soon after the man died. Such prejudices deserve to be re- corded. As Men of Letters, indeed, such Doctors may deserve academical honors, if what was recorded a short time ago in the public papers be true, for I think it exceeds in literary attainments all I ever read of before. One of these Vaccine, Equestrian, and Asinine Doctors, in writing out his bills, managed to spell the Christian name of a customer without one letter that strictly be- longed to it : Gekup for Jacob. It was the wife of one of these learned Doctors, who for the be- nefit of the rising generation, in a certain village in the West, undertook, according to the board over the Doctor's own door, to instruct her neighbours' children, even in the higher ac- 40 DOCTOR. complishments of life, upon the following easy terms : " Schooling for little boys and girls at 2d. per week ; Them as larns manners pays 2rf. more." It is probably owing to this degradation ant! abuse of the Doctorial title, that the Doctor's real rank in society is so little understood. Not that I find it any where well arranged in our orders of precedence, which often differ ex- tremely one from another ; but in general I find it run thus ; Doctors, Deans, &c. This is a sad hodge-podge way of marshalling these dignified persons ; for instance, a Dean is generally a Doctor; but if not, would the Or- ganist of his cathedral have a right to go before him ? is a Doctor of Music entitled to precede a Baronet's eldest son ? or a Serjeant at Law? For so it would seem according to some of our tables of precedence. A Doctor of Music may be an extremely respectable man ; I have known many such. He may on the score of moral worth, or cultivated talents, be entitled to precede -many whom the order places above him ; but this ia nothing to the present question. I am speaking DOCTOR. 41 not of persons but of places. Not so much of his degree, as of his Faculty. Is music (though so justly admirable in its principles and effects) exactly upon a par with Divinity, Law, or Phy- sic? except in our universities, the distinction and rank of Faculties is not only not understood, but never perhaps so much as thought of. This confusion of Faculties seems to have been the occasion of Swift's Banter, entitled, " the Right of Precedence," in which he argues the case be- tween Physicians and Civilians, or the Professors of Law and Physic, and decides in favour of the latter, on the score of its superior antiquity, being inclined also to do the same by music, " he who could doubt," says he, " of the origin of physic, must be so ignorant of religion and history, that I should disdain an answer ; though I could tell him not only what ihejirst distemper was (and that epidemical, viz. a. Jailing sickness) but also who it was that cured it." He insists strongly that physic should have the precedence of law, either civil or canonical, on the grounds above stated ; and would have it run through all the branches. That a Doctor of Physic should take place of a Doctor of Laws ; a Surgeon of an Advocate; an Apothecary of a Proctor in Office; 42 DOCTOR. and a Tooth-drawer of a Register of the Court. He insists also that upon the same score of an- tiquity, the excellent Faculties of Music and Poetry should take place of Law ; their antiquity being undoubted ; while there was certainly a time when neither civil nor canon law were at all necessary. This may be true enough, but in going back so far to find the origin of Physic, I question if he does not trench upon the rights of Divinity, his reference to the first Distemper, and cure of it, is a little too grave I think for a work of humour, but it would raise a doubt at all events as to the exact origin of Divinity as a Faculty. A Chancellor of one of our universi- ties, I know not exactly which, being called upon once to decide which should go first, of Doctors in Law or Physic, asked which preceded at an execution, the thief or the hangman; and being told that usually the thief, went first, and the executioner second, then, said he, let the Doctors of Law have precedence, and Doctors in Medicine go next. I have heard of a dis- pute between Divinity and Law, curiously ma- naged and settled by a reference to Scripture, (I hope I shall not be considered profane in cit- ing such facts and writings.) The dispute was DOCTOR. 43 stated to be between a Bishop and a Judge. And after some altercation, the latter thought he should quite confound his opponent, by quoting the following passage : " For on these two hang all the Law and the Prophets." " Do you not see," says the Lawyer, in triumph, " that even in this passage of Scripture we are mentioned first?" " I grant you," says the Bishop, "you HANG first!" But to return to our order of precedence as they relate to Doctors. I have already cited one which stands thus ; Masters in Chancery, Doctors, Deans, &c. Serjeants at Law, and quite at the bottom of the list, Clergymen, Barristers at Law, Officers in the Navy and Army. Not a word about Generals or Admirals, Colonels, Post-Captains, &c. &c. ; but after the Knights of the Bath come in Flag and Field Officers ; and yet in Collins's Baronetage, a work of no small reputation, I find in one line, "Colonels, Serjeants at Law, Doctors, Deans," not a word of Generals or Admirals, Flag, or Field Officers ; but much lower (together with Barristers at Law,) Lieutenant-Colonel, Majors, 44 DOCTOR. Captains, &c. And in Beatson's Political Index, though he has, like Collins, in succession, Colonels, Serjeants at Law, and Doctors graduate, yet he puts all these below those above, whom they rank in Collins, as well as in the other orders of precedence ; nor does he say a word about Flag or Field Officers. What confusion is this ! but it does not end here, in Guillim and in Chamberlayn's State of Great Britain, &c. all Colonels are said to be honourable, and by the law of arms ought to precede simple knights. What then brings them below Mas- ters in Chancery, as they stand in Collins 1 while in Beatson, strange to say, Masters in Chancery are placed above Baronets-. Doctors have, by some authors, been held to have the rank of Knights in Chivalry, and therefore it is perhaps that they are placed where they are, in some of our orders of precedence. Almost im- mediately after Knights, and above even the eldest sons of Baronets ; in fact, and to use the words of writers upon this subject, although they are neither Knights nor gentlemen born, yet DOCTCVR. 45 they take place amongst them. Why indeed they should not be Knights, (at least after ten years standing, as Upton says they have a right to be, though not with the consent of Selden,) as well as some who occasionally attain to that very ancient and honourable title, it might be difficult to shew. It would indeed be only exchanging one too com- mon title for another, " Sir," for " Doctor." The confusion of ranks and faculties would be the same ; but it would effectually exclude Apothe- caries and Farriers, for though by long use the phrase to " doctor" a horse, or " doctor" an old woman, or " doctor 1 a cow, is become intelligi- ble ; to " Sir" a horse, or " Sir" an old woman, could scarcely by any means be rendered so. I remember however an apprehension excited in the mind of a very worthy Doctor of Divinity, and Rector of a parish, with whom I was ac- quainted, that might render the Knight's title more obnoxious to the Clergy in particular, than to the gentlemen of other faculties. The ac- quaintance I am alluding to, by the death of a relation, happening to succeed to the title of baronet, expressed a fear lest his parishioners, who had been accustomed to call him " your Reverence" should put " Sir" before it in their subsequent addresses. 46 DOCTOR. There exists an odd anomaly, more legal, than heraldic, in regard to the three degrees we have just had occasion to mention, namely, Colonels, Serjeants at Law, and Doctors in the threfe learned professions. As they are all of higher degree than Esquires, their eldest sons are qua- lified to kill game. And this, without -any estate ; nay, though their fathers should not be qualified themselves to kill game, by having the requisite property. However strange this may seem, yet I think I may venture to say* it has been so determined, though I cannot at present refer to the case. &Vic& " 10 j;Rtao M Having remarked above, that there seems to have been some want of attention shewn in assign- ing the proper rank to the several faculties, I shall subjoin the following arrangement, adopted in Scotland, as far as regards the Professors of the different Sciences, according to which they stand thus : 1. Theology. 2. Canon Law. & Civil Law. 4. Philosophy. 5. Medicine. 6. Rhetorick. 7. Poesy. 8. History. 9. Grammar. 10. Logic. 11. Arithmetic. 12. Geometry. 13. Music. 14. Astronomy. Among these, such as are Doc- tors, precede those that are not; and among Doctors the priority goes by age. TITLES. THAT none may fancy I wish to make too much of titles, or am disposed to estimate them too highly, I shall beg, before I go farther, to explain myself more particularly upon this point. I know their proper worth and value. " It is not to shine in grace and esteem at court that can ennoble one ; such glory is like glass," as an old author says, " bright but brittle." I know, that as the conundrum teacheth, (one of the most accidental combinations, by the bye, of wit and wisdom, mirth and morality, that ever was discovered) that even M AJEST Y, stripped of its externals, is but " a Jest ;" much more of course all infe- rior titles ; yet I am not for stripping them of their externals merely to render them a Jest, to those who are disposed to think meanly of them. As social and political distinctions, they have their use, and though in some instances, (foreign chiefly, not English,) they may appear to have been carried to excess, (as in the case of the Governor of Shiraz, who in addition to a pompous enumeration of qualities and lordships, 48 TITLES. calls himself, the flower of courtesy, the nutmeg of consolation, and the rose of delight ;) yet I have known titles heaped upon man merely as man, by grave philosophers, that exceed all that have been invented for worldly purposes ; as in the following instance, we are reminded by that cu- rious and most learned writer, old Robert Bur- ton, the Anatomist of Melancholy. " Man, the most excellent and noble creature of the world, the principal and mighty work of God, wonder of nature, as Zoroaster calls him, audacis natures miraculum, the marvail of marvails, as Plato ; the abridgment and epitome of the world as Pliny ; microcosmus a little world, a model of the world, sovereign lord of the earth, viceroy of the world, sole commander and governor of all the creatures in it ; to whose empire they are subject in particular, and yield obedience, far sur- passing all the rest, not in body only but in soul ; imaginis imago, created in God's own image, &c. &c. &c." Such are supposed to be the proper titles of man, in his primitive and original con- dition, and it is very evident, that no earthly titles can exceed them. They are the titles of the very first man Adam, as he came out of the hands of God, " pure, divine, perfect, happy, TITLES. 49 created after God in true holiness and righteous- ness ; Deo congruens, free from all manner of infirmities." There was an old saying amongst the Lollards, (and which the Preacher Ball, in the time of the insurrection of Wat Tyler took for his text in addressing the rabble at Blackheath,) Mi;ui.: o s \t)htw:vK\ *>V*$&f " When Adam delv'd and Eve span. .to Who was then a gentleman ? *'.aa ,/r^;D> SjhsvsSrtttyrA ,su,i^ br.ma& Or, as some copies hav it; ' ^.atiq btta .vJLa.fcir.f) t ilj-js>.o o) jajjdya ** " Where was then the gentleman ?" which has often since been oited with a design of casting a reflection on all titles of honour, as though they were merely the offspring of human pride, and that in our origin we were all equally ignoble ; but, on the contrary I shall repeat, that in going back to Adam, we should find that there was originally a Nobility belonging to our race, of which all earthly distinctions reflect but a very faint and feeble image. And this may serve for an answer to another ques- tion of the same party, as recorded in history, " Why Adam had not obtained a patent of No- bility for all his descendants ?" The Adamic VOL. I. E 60 TITLES. nobility was forfeited and lost ; " Heu tristis et lacrymosa commutatio, O pitiful change/' as the author I have before cited very reasonably ex- claims. The titles applied to man in his de- graded state by philosophers and divines, are to all intents and purposes, as base as the foregoing are honourable. " Fallen and miserable," mise- rabilis homuncio ! a cast-away, a caitiff, a mon- ster of stupendous metamorphosis ; a fox, a dog, a hog, lascivid equum, impudentid canem, astu vulpem, furore leonem, as Chrysostom has it, " subject to death, calamity, and pain." Here then are titles and distinctions of all sorts, good and bad, primitive and derivative, ante-diluvian and post-deluvian, &c. &c. &c. Surely we may be allowed to take a medium, and by a few worldly honors endeavour at least to remind the poor caitiffs and cast-aways of the earth, that they would do well to aspire to the rank from whence they have fallen ; for worldly honours, however now and then abused, are undoubtedly designed to represent some in- herent virtue, merit, or talent ; to put us in mind ,as it were, of the degradation incurred. The ex- ternals of majesty are necessary to the completion of the character of a King, but not of a man ; and TITLES. Ol he who should be stripped of them by political convulsions, as was the case with the late amiable monarch of France, might defy his bit- terest enemies to make " a Jest" of him, if as a man he retained that greatness and dignity of character, of which those externals could be but faint representations. In no part of his un- happy life did Charles the First appear so great, as when he fell into the hands of his persecu- tors ; when stripped of the externals of majesty, he appeared with kingly dignity before his coarse and vulgar judges ; calmly sustained the rude and beastly insults of the rabble, and pa- tiently submitted his neck to the executioner, at the window of his own palace. Louis Seize derived lustre, it is true, from the externals of majesty, in the eyes of the vulgar, as long as they retained one spark of their an- cient devotion to the " Grand Monarch," but in the eyes of the wise and feeling, much greater was the lustre he derived from his misfortunes ; from the fortitude displayed on his trial, in his prison, and at the foot of the guillotine. His un- fortunate Queen, daughter of the high-minded Maria Theresa, Empress and KING, rose, as she sunk, became great exactly in proportion as she 2 52 TITLES. Seemed to be abandoned by fortune ; displayed virtue in adversity, which in prosperity she had been thought not only to neglect but despise. Finally, having undergone, according to very private and particular reports, the pangs of contrition, for all past offences, she died on a scaffold, a martyr to politics, but a saint, it is to be hoped, in religion. The writer of these pages had opportunities of seeing the last two of these royal personages, shining in all the splendour and brilliancy that the externals of majesty could east around them ; but, he feels bound to confess, that his idea of their worth increased with their misfor- tunes, and that they never appeared less a Jest to him than when stripped of the externals of majesty, they became victims to the barbarity of a revolutionary government, and the scorn of a parcel of proud republicans. As it is with Majesty, so is it with all worldly distinctions ; they only ennoble a man as a member of society, not as a human being ; it depends upon the man himself whether he be above or below his own title, but it is undeniable that the latter being meant as the reward of virtue, should con- stantly .give him a bias that way. " A mere great man," says Bishop EarJe, in his Microcosmo- TITLES. 63 graphy, " is BO much heraldry without honour, himself less real than his title. His virtue is, that he was his father's son, and all the expec- tation of him to beget another." It was the say- ing of a Queen, (Christina of Sweden) when, contrary to the expectations of her courtiers, she had raised Salvius, a man of low birth, but great talents, to the rank of a Senator of Stockholm, " when good advice and wise counsel are wanted, who looks for sixteen quarters ?" excellent are the sentiments contained in the following lines, " Though to your Title there is honor due, It is yourself that makes me honor you !" What's Honor ? Not to be captious ; not unjustly fight ; 'Tis to confess what's wrong, and do what's right. Can place or lessen us, or aggrandise ? Pigmies are pigmies still, tho' perch'd on Alps ! And pyramids are pyramids in vales ! Each man builds his own structure, builds himself; Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids ; Her monuments shall last, when Egypt's fall." Are then the externals of majesty, nobility, &c. &c. I would ask, just objects of envy? Far from it. The externals of majesty, I appre- hend, seldom compensate to any, but never to the good man, the troubles and vexations of so exalted, and what is more, so conspicuous a sta- tion. " Mihi credite," said an Emperor, " mori 54 TITLES. mallem quam Imperare." " Curia curis stringi- tur, Diadema spinis cingitur." " In the greatest fortune," says Sallust, " there is the least liberty." " In maxima fortuna, minima licentia." " Kings, Princes, Monarchs, and Magistrates seem/' says Burton, " to be most happy, but look into their estate, you shall find them to be most encum- bered with cares, in perpetual fear, agony, sus- picion, jealousy." That, as Valerius said of a crown, if they knew but the discontents that ac- company it, they would not stop to take it up. Plus aloes quam mellis habet, it has more bitters than sweets belonging to it, " non humijacentem tolleres." " Quern mihi regem dabis, non curis ple- num ?" says an eloquent Father of the Church, " What King canst thou shew me not full of cares ?" Look not on his crown, but consider his afflictions ; attend not his number of ser- vants, but multitude of crosses ; Sylla-like, they have brave titles, but terrible cares ; " Splen- dorem titulo, cruciatum ammo." " But woes me," says Linklater of King James, in the Fortunes of Nigel, " if you knew how many folks make it their daily and nightly purpose to set his head against his heart, and his heart against his head to make him do hard things because they are called just, and unjust things because they .are TITLES. 55 represented as kind !" Now is not this enough to convince one, that worldly titles and distinc- tions, can seldom be any fair objects of envy, and that as Henry IV. says, in Shakspeare, " Uneasy lies the head That wears a crown." Seeing these things, and living under a mo- narchy, regulated and limited, upon the purest principles of political freedom, I feel a degree of gratitude mixed up with my loyalty, towards the exalted personage, who, with so little thanks, sustains so heavy a burthen ; nor can I well bear to hear the murmurings and complaints of cer- tain narrow-minded or malicious persons, who may be said constantly to stand ready to censure all his actions, as though it were not the law of the land that had placed him in so strange, so singular, so perilous, and so anxious a situation ; but that he had usurped it, and altogether taken it upon himself, for his own pleasure and amuse- ment, if not for baser ends. I must beg you to excuse a long extract from that interesting poet Cowper; for I like to give Kings fair play as well as other people ; " To be suspected, thwarted, and withstood, E'en when h labours for his country's good, To see a band call'd patriot for no cause, Bat that Uiej catch at popular applause ; 56 TITLES. Careless of all th' anxiety he feels, Hook disappointment on the public wheels, With all their flippant fluency of tongue, Most confident, when palpably most wrong ; If this be kingly, then farewell for me All kingship ! and may I, be poor and free. To be the table-talk of clubs op stairs, To which th' unwash'd artificer repairs, T' indulge his genius after long fatigue By diving into Cabinet intrigue, (For what kings deem a toil, as well they may, To him is relaxation and mere play.) To win no praise when well wrought plans prevail, But to be rudely censur'd when they fail, To doubt the love his fav'rites pretend, And in reality to find no friend ; If he indulge a cultivated taste, His gall'ries with the works of art well grac'd, To hear it call'd extravagance and waste ; If these attendants, and if such as these, Must follow royalty, then farewell ease ; However humMe and confin'd the sphere, Happy the state that has not these to fear." Let it be granted then," that in the eye of the philosopher and politician, Majesty stripped of its externals is but a jest, yet let us be sure that however brilliant and dazzling to the optics of him who gazes only at the King, those externals may appear, they can contribute very little to lighten the cares and disquietudes that may prey ,, < aitjOtHI l&4<"v -,*>" '4- fi upon the man. " What infinite heart-ease must kings neglect That private men enjoy ? and what have kings, That private have not too save ceremony? TITLES. 57 And what art them, tliou idol ceremony ? What are thy rents ? what are thy comings-in ? Art thou aught else bat place, degree, and form? 1 am a King that find thee, and I know Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball, The sword, the mace, the Crown Imperial, The enter-tissued robe of gold and pearl, The forsed title running 'fore the King, The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp, No, not all these thrice-gorgeous ceremonies, Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, For, (but for ceremony") such a wretch, Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep, Hath the forehand and vantage of a King." . .'j . i <-i..'- .,' . ,\',- . \ ;; ;;j What the anatomist of melancholy, old Bur- ton says of Kings and Princes, he considers to be, with very little difference, as applicable to the rich. " Rich men," says he, " are in the same predicament ; what their pains are " Stulti msciunt ipsi sentiiint ;" what they feel, fools per- ceive not. " Their wealth is brittle like children's rattles : they come and go, there is no certainty in them." But more of the rich hereafter. I have said what I have of Titles, merely to take off, if I can, the keen edge of that envy and jealousy, with which too many in this free country are apt to regard the whole system^ of personal distinctions, ranks, titles, privileges and prerogatives. The morality and philosophy of 58 TITLES. good old Burton, with which I began this sec- tion, will plainly shew, that as to titles, the poorest man alive, may simply as man, aspire to some, exceeding in grandeur and intrinsic worth, all that the proudest monarch has to bestow. While the latter, by the common course of sub- lunary events, may be made to pay so dearly for his crown, as to render him justly envious of the happier and more free condition of the very lowliest of his subjects. What I have hinted, may also, I would hope, have a tendency to keep more quiet the aspiring, or to reconcile those who fail of attaining to the distinctions they seek after, to their loss and disappointment ; for notwithstanding the many cares attached to the higher stations of life, all are ambitious of attaining to them. " As a dog in a wheel, (says Budaus,) as a bird in a cage, as a squirrel in a chain, the ambitious climb and climb still, but never make an end, never at the top." " So," says Burton, from whom I bor- row the reference, " a Knight would be a Ba- ronet, and then a Lord, and then a Viscount, and then an Earl, &c. &c. : a Doctor a Dean, and then a Bishpp ; from Tribune to Prater, Bailiff to Mayor ; first this office and then TlfLES. 59 that ; as Pyrrhus in Plutarch, they will have first Greece, then Africk, and then Asia, and swell like JEsop's frogs so long, till in the end they burst, or come down with Sejanus, ad Ge- monias scalas, and break their necks : or as Evan- gelus the piper in Lucian, who blew his pipe till he fell down dead." Cromwell was not contented with being only Lord Protector, he wished to be King, but was in the end, afraid to take the title. While he judged the kingly power and office to be beyond his grasp, he was for doing it quite away. There is to this day, I believe, a printed sermon of his extant, on Romans xiii. 1. which contains a good specimen of his biblical heraldry, and an- timonarchical theology. " But now that I have mentioned KINGS, the question is, whether by ' the HIGHER Powers/ are meant Kings or Commoners ? Truly beloved, it is a very great question among those that are learned : for may not every one that can read observe, that Paul speaks in the plural number, ' higher Powers.' Now, had he meant subjection to a King, he would have said ' higher Power ;' if he had meant that is, but one man : but by this you see he meant more than one; he bids us be ' subject 00 TITLES. to the Higher Powers,' THAT is! ! the Council of State, the House of Commons, and the ARMY !" Had Oliver been discreet, he would have looked I think into some other part of the Bible for a text, on which to raise such an argument, though that he would have found one, I much doubt; but with his parade of singulars and plurals, in the very chapter cited it happens oddly enough that there is as frequent mention of " the Power," (singular) as of " the Powers" (plural) and I am much deceived if verse 4 be not as pointed a description of a King, a Mo- narch, or Chief Magistrate, as any that could be pitched upon to that purpose. Nay, I do not know whether it may not allude to the saddest Tyrant that ever existed, even Emperor Nero ! for that he ruled over the Romans at the time St. Paul addressed this Epistle to them is exceed- ingly well known. I do not mean to say, that St. Paul meant to compliment Nero ; praise the man, or commend his government ; but I am very certain that he meant to say, that any per- son placed by the laws of his country, in the situation Nero was, was a proper " higher pow- er," to whom honor as well as tribute, fear as well as custom was due. And if Old Noll were TITLES. 61 now alive, I should be bold to tell him, that I had much rather see the executive government, the supreme power, and the sword of justice in the hands of almost any ONE guardian, than in those of any Council of State, House of Com- mons, or ARMY whatsoever. Of " the higher Powers" in Oliver's days, we have a lively picture, (ushered in by a most de- licate simile) in the second canto of the third part of Hudibras. " For as a Ely that goes to bed Rests wilh his tail above his head ; So in this mongrel state of ours, The Rabble are ' the Supreme Powers.' " There is nothing perhaps more curious, than the homage paid to worldly greatness, by those, whose speech, actions, or conduct, have at times been most directly opposed to it. Who would have believed, from the first part of Crom- well's political life, and the singular sermon to which I have so lately alluded, that he could ever have thirsted after the title of King ? Yet Cowley gives this account of him ; and though the latter was a sort of partisan, and Cromwell himself coquetted so far as to pretend to decline the title when proposed to him, I am much mis- .62 TITLES. taken if he did not inwardly desire it, as ear- nestly as Cowley insinuates. Nay, I think it is plain, from the very words of the Committee appointed by Parliament to offer it to him. " The objections raised by Your Highness," say they, " seem very far from implying any neces- sity for declining the title, being founded upon suppositions purely conjectural" It is indeed mat- ter of fact, that he was no sooner invested with the power, than ne assumed tfre pageantry of a King. His peers of Parliament were created by patent, in the margin of which, amongst other ornaments, are, a portrait of him, in regal robes, and his paternal escocheon, with many quarter- ings. But, to return to Cowley ; In his discourse on " Greatness," speaking of the Giants' attempt of scaling Heaven by heap- ing Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion upon Ossa, " a famous person of their offspring," says he, " the late Giant of our nation, when from the condition of a very inconsiderable Captain, he had made himself Lieutenant General of an army of little Titans, which was his first mountain, and afterward General, which was the second, and after that absolute tyrant of three kingdoms, which was the third, and almost touched the TITLES. 63 Heaven which he affected, is believed to have died with grief and discontent, because he could not attain to the honest name of a King, and the old formality of a Crown, though he had before exceeded the power by a wicked usurpa- tion. If he could have compassed that, he would perhaps have wanted something else that is necessary to felicity, and pined away for want of the title of an Emperor or a God." We know a good deal about a more modern Cromwell, who passing through nearly the same early career of life, but much more rapidly, did not stop, before he became King and Emperor; and when he had become so, called around him, the dear friends of a Republic, one and indivisi- ble; of Liberty and Equality ; the sworn foes to monarchy, hereditary nobility, titles, and privi- leges; regicides, theophilanthropists, &,c. 8cc.&c. : heaped on them all sorts of worldly honors, titles, and distinctions ; gave them principali- ties, dukedoms, vice-royalties, nay kingdoms, and by putting mountains upon mountains before them for stepping stones, associated them with him, in such a career of pride and ambition, as,, had it not been timely checked and interrupted, must, have ended, (most certainly not in scaling 64 TITLES, Heaven, but) in subduing the whole earth, and subjecting every free and independent nation to one universal monarchy. Such are the changes and fashions of the world. Of this new order of Noblesse, an eye- witness of great celebrity thus speaks. " No- thing certainly presents a greater subject for pleasantry, than the creation of an entirely new Noblesse, such as Buonaparte established for the support of his new throne. The Princesses and Queens, citizenesses of the day before, could not themselves refrain from laughing at hearing themselves styled your Highness or your Ma- jesty. Others more serious delighted in having their title of Monseigneur repeated from morning to night, like Moliere's City Gentleman. The old archives were rummaged for the discovery of the best documents on etiquette : men of merit found a grave occupation in making coats of armour for the new families ; finally, no day passed which did not afford some scene worthy of the pen of Moliere; but the terror which formed the back ground of the picture, prevented the grotesque of the front from being laughed at as it deserved to be. The glory of the French Generals illustrated all, and the obsequious cour- TITLES. 65 tiers contrived to slide themselves in under the shadow of military men, who doubtless deserved the severe honors of a free state, but not the vain decorations of such a court. Valor and ge- nius descend from Heaven, and whoever is gifted with them, has no need of other ancestors. The distinctions which are accorded in republics or limited monarchies, ought to be the reward of services rendered to the country, and every one may equally pretend to them ; but nothing savors so much of Tartar despotism, as this crowd of honors emanating from one man, and having his caprice for their source." Strange however as Buonaparte's court may have appeared, Cromwell's I apprehend must have looked a good deal rougher and more un- polished. " Janizary Desbrow tben look'd pale, For, said he, if this rump prevail, 'Twill blow me back to my old plaw-laU, Which nobody can deny." Desborough, who married Cromwell's sister, was, they say, actually a plough-boy, though he became a General, a Privy Councillor, and a Member of the Upper House, with an income of 32367. 13s. 4d. VOL. I. F 66 TITLES. " So here's a Committee of Safety, compounded Of knave and of fool, of Papist and Roundhead, On basis of treason and tyranny grounded." But we have a regular account of Oliver's Court in a TRUE SONG, written 1654. I. He that would a new Courtier be, And of the late-coyn'd Gentry, A brother of the prick-ear'd Crew, Half a Presbyter, halfa/ew, When be is dipp'd in Jordan's flood, And wash'd his hands in royal blood, Let him to our Court repair. Where all trades and religions are, II. If he can devoutly pray, Feast upon a fasting day, Be longer blessing a warm bit, Than the Cook was dressing it, With Covenants and Oaths dispense, Betray his Lord for forty pence ; Let him to our Court repair, Where all trades and religions are. III. If he be one of the eating Tribe, Both a Pharisee and a Scribe, And hath learn'd the sniv'ling tone Of a flux'd devotion, Cursing from his sweating Tub The Cavaliers to Beelzebub ; Let him to our Court repair, Where all trades and religions are. IV. Who tickler than the City Ruff, Can change his Brewer's Coat to Buft ; TITLES. 67 His Dray-coat to a Coach, the beast Into Two Flanders' mares, at least, Nay, hath the art to murder Kings, Like David, only with his Slings ; Let him to our Court repair, Where alf. trade* and religions cure. V. If he can invert the Word, Turning his Plough-share to a sword, His Cassock to a Coat of Mail ; 'Gainst Bishops and the Clergy rail, Convert Paul's Chnrch into a Mews, Make a netc Colonel of old Shoes ; Let him to our Court repair, Where all trades and religions are. Oliver's House of Commons is thus elegantly described. " 'Tis Noll's old brewhou.se now I swear ; The Speaker's but his Skinker, Their Members are like the Council of War, Carmen, Pedlars, Tinker. Take and bis Club, and Smec and his Tub, Or any sect old or new ; The Devil's in the pack, if choice you can lack,. We are four score religions strong." 6 6 .,f tc .-it,. " The fittest emblem of the Parliament House is a Turkey-pie. The heads without will infonn you what birds are within." " Make room for one-ey'd Hewson, A Lord of such account, Tuns a pretty jest, That such a beast .Should to such honours mount. F 2 68 TITLES. When Coblers were in fashion, And niggards in snch grace, 'Twas sport to see How Pride and he Did jostle for the place." Hewson was really a cobler, but as well as Desborough, a Member of the Upper House, and knighted ; he was also a Colonel in the army. A lady of quality in Ireland, who had been so plundered by the soldiery as to be obliged to go almost barefoot, warming her feet one day at a fire, the Colonel took notice of her bad shoes, and asked why she did not have them capped ? " Why truly, Sir," says she, " all the Coblers are turned Colonels, and I can get none to mend them." Which story, by the bye, is of a piece with the famous pasquinade on Sextus Quintus, whose sister had been a laundress. Upon Sextus being made Pope, Pasquin's statue was dressed one night in a very dirty shirt, with an excuse written under it, that he was obliged to wear foul linen, because his laundress was made a Princess. Pride was a foundling, and had been a brewer, or rather a drayman ; " Bat observe the device of this Nobleman's nee, How he harried from trade to trade, From the grains he'd aspire to the yest, and then higher, Till at length he a drayman was made." TITLES. 69 He also was one of the Upper House, and is called Thomas Lord Pride, in the commission for erecting a high Court of Justice, for the trial of Sir Henry Slingsby, &c. : Oliver Cromwell knighted him with a faggot stick. Though the above verses of course are the productions of the opposite party, yet the facts and cases are true. The lowest persons in the county were made High Sheriffs, and people of all kinds and descriptions put into the Commis- sion of the Peace. The town of Chelmsford in Essex is reported to have been in those times of misrule, governed by a Tinker, two Coblers, two Tailors, and a Pedlar. I would not pretend to say that the Court which succeeded Oliver's was intrinsically bet- ter ; far from it, if we may believe Butler, in his Hudibras at Court} and upon such a subject, Butler I think ought to be believed. The follow- ing lines I fear represent the truth, " Bat see the Court how 'tis inchanted, By witches and hobgoblins haunted, And how the Prince his treasure squanders Amongst his Concubines and Panders ; Whilst his true friends the Cavaliers, For perfect want, all hang their ears ; Are all neglected and postpon'd, And rarelj seen, and hardly own'd ; 70 TITLES. Quoth Ralph, all this I own is true, But what is this to me and you ? I grant indeed the Cavaliers Have cause enough to hapg their ears, When they see Panders, Pimps, and Cullies, Sharpers, Setters, Rakes, and Bullies, To Favors and High Posts preferr'd, They can't be blam'd to think it hard." But as to the Kingly Courts of the 17th cen- tury, we have a graver authority than Hudibras ; Selden, (if the Table-talk be his.) " In our Court in Queen Elizabeth's time, gravity and state were kept up. In King James's Court, things were pretty well ; (not always so, as I shall have occasion to shew) but in King Charles's time, there has been nothing but French more and the Cushion dance, omnium gatherum, tolly polly, hoite cum toite" This must have been the Court that preceded Cromwell's and yet I cannot reconcile it with King Charles's character ; and what is odd enough, Selden himself was one of the contrivers of the celebrated Pageant, an amusement far from frivolous or of any unbecom- ing levity, and which rather marks the temper of the Court. Cromwell's Court, though composed of upstarts, was grave to a degree of austerity. Voltaire speaks of " la sombre Administration de Cromwell," and it must be confessed he looked TITLES. 71 more to manliness of character, than brilliancy of manners : Charles the Second's Court, it should be observed, however corrupt, did not represent the general principles of the nation. These were still subsisting in such vigour, be- yond the verge of the Court, as to lay the founda- tion for the subsequent revolution. But to advert once more to the assumption of Titles by Republican Rulers. I have heard it observed, as a remarkable circumstance in the history of the Seven United Provinces, that after establishing their Republic, by so noble a resist- ance to the tyranny of the proud King and proud nation, by whom they had been in so great dan- ger of being enthralled, they should suffer them- selves to be addressed by a title, as arrogant in sound at least, as any adopted by the despots of the East ; viz. Their HIGH MIGHTINESSES ! A title certainly not savoring much of Repub- licanism, Liberty, or Equality ; however, in cre- dit to the Dutch I must say, I think it sounds more arrogant in our language, than it ever was intended to be. In the Fortunes of Nigel, lately published, the title I see is changed into " Mighty 72 TITLES. Mightinesses," But to proceed with the history of the former appellation. That in the situa- tion in which the Seven Provinces stood at the period of their emancipation from the Spa- nish yoke, it might be necessary to assume such a title, we may conclude from two circum- stances upon record, admirably suited to the pre- sent work ; the object of which is to give titles their proper force, and at the same time point out their importance. You shall now then hear, not only how high and mighty these republicans thought themselves, but how determined they were, that every body else should acknowledge them to be so j and how much, though they were republicans not long emancipated from the gilded shackles of courtly tyranny, they stood upon titles and ceremonins. In 1640 the Count d'Averspejg arrived at the Hague on an embassy from the Emperor ; and immediately sent his credentials to the President of the States, to be laid before the Assembly, bearing the following inscription, and abounding in titles, as Wiquefort calls them "fort magni- Jiques," exceedingly grand. " Illustribus, Ge- nerosis, Nobilibus, et honorabilibus, nostris et sancti Romani Imperii fidelibus, dilectis N N TITLES. 73 ordinibus Unitarum Provinciarum." But the States no sooner looked at the address, than they returned the credentials, with indignation, unopened ; advising the Embassador speedily to return to his Imperial Master, and to teach him how to direct his letters as he should do; or offering to let him retire to Cologne till he could receive other letters of credence. What gave them so great offence, was that the Emperor had presumed to call them, " His Trusty and well-beloved," which was too gross an affront to their Sovereignty to be passed by. Other let- ters were procured, omitting the passage ob- jected to, but the object of the negotiation failed. In the year just preceding, the Palatin of Smolensko had got into much such another scrape, not by the insertion of any thing amiss in his letters, but by the unfortunate omission of the very titles we are discussing. He could not be admitted to an audience, because in his letters the States were not called High and Mighty. The mere neglect of inserting the two terms, " celsi et pr&potentes," being the sole rea- son alleged for dismissing him so cavalierly ; for they remembered, says Wiquefort, how ig- 74 TITLES. nominiously they had been treated a few years before by Prince James Radzivil of Poland, who not only had failed in his harangue in the Stadt- house, by calling the Prince of Orange " Illus- trious" only, and the States themselves " Mag- nificent," " Illmtris, et Magnifici" but had de- livered to them his credentials, loaded indeed with titles, " Illustrissimis, lUmtribus, Mag- nificis, Generosis, Nobilibus" but not having one in the whole number, that did properly express their Sovereignty and Independence. These were the things to be set forth by their chosen title of HIGH MIGHTINESSES, especially in their negotiations with the ancient Courts of Europe. The whole Seventeen Provinces are now united again under a Kingly Government, and what is odd enough, their new King seems pointedly to acknowledge the Sovereignty of his own sub- jects, by retaining in his addresses to the States, the very title of" High Mightinesses," so much insisted upon by the latter, as the indisputable mark of both sovereignty, and republican inde- pendence. TITLES. 75 But perhaps, in the history of things, no stronger instances of adulation to the ruling powers of a state could be produced, than what we read of the democratic bailiwicks of Swisser- land and Italy, subject to the " Magnificent and Sovereign Lords of the Cantons," as Miss Helen Maria Williams was pleased to call them, (in the year 1798.) Her relation of matters, is too lively and entertaining to be omitted, especially as proceeding from the pen of a sans-culotte ad- mirer and eulogist of the late Despot of France, and one so anti-tyrannical, as to have done her utmost but a few years before, to insult and ex- pose that (weak perhaps, in a political point of view) but amiable and well-intentioned Sove- reign, Louis Seize. Miss W. with much humour, and some share of good sense, thus describes the attention paid to the bailiffs or biennial governors, of those petty states, whose revenues consisting entirely of fines exacted in criminal cases, were destined as she well observes, to " grow rich, exactly in proportion as their subjects became wicked." Writing from Lugano, she says, " Whatever grounds of complaint from pro- consular rapacity might have existed in former 76 TITLES. times, we were happy to hear, amidst universal plaudits, of the return of the golden age, under the administration of the most illustrious Signor Don Francesco Saverio Zeltner, counsellor and captain of artillery of the most excellent city and republic of Soleure, who now terminates his most upright government of Captain Regent of Lugano. The administration of this renowned governor, was celebrated in odes, sonnets, and other poetical records, which were distributed in the church with great profusion at the close of the ceremonial. No Horace or Waller could string the lyre with fonder raptures to the glo- ries of Augustus or Cromwell, than that which burst from the poets of Lugano in praise of their immortal bailiff! The names of heroes who lived before Agamemnon have perished, we are told, in unknown night, because unsung by the sacred bard ; but the name of DON ZELTNER is proudly rescued from such vulgar oblivion. We shall pass over the eulogium of the tribe of poets by pro- fession, to whom fiction is allowed as a matter of right, and shall only slightly mention the strains of the " Signor Abate Don Amatore So- lari, pro-regent, professor extraordinary," and enjoying numerous other titles, who had put a TITLES. 77 new string to his old discordant harp, to record the train of Zeltner's virtues, " Da nuovo plettro 1'agitata corda, Tutte di ZELTNER le virtu recorda." We shall not consider too deeply the sorrows of the noble fiscal Signer Don Pietro Frasca, doctor of both laws, who demands of his mourn- ful muse, and not inelegantly why, with dishevelled hair, she beats her snowy bosom, and who answers by her sighs striking on her lyre, " sospiri all' etra Ma aime ch' ei parte !" that Zeltner the great hero is about to depart. Poor is even praise like this, when compared with the poetical tribute which the virtues of Zeltner have wrung from the brain of the venera- ble College of respectable and worshipful nota- ries of Lugano, the bankers, trustees, and attor- nies of every individual in the state ; who, over- leaping the dull, precise, plodding forms of law, " be it known unto all men, &c." strike the soft chords of poetic eulogy, and in lays appro- priate to their professions, so far as their profes- sions can sympathise with lays, pour forth a pane- gyric on the rare disinterestedness, and exalted virtue of Captain Zeltner. " When Alexander," sing these tuneful nota- 78 TITLES. ries, " when Alexander returned from the van- quished Euphrates, loaded with gold to his na- tive country sighs of sorrow broke forth from the bottom of his heart. The bones of Achilles, which he contemplated on his way, excited fre- quent bursts of envy in the soul of the mighty conqueror. Thou, (that is Don Zeltner) loaded not with rapacious spoils, but bending under the weight of honor, alone hast to fear no such interruption to thy joy, since thou hast already reached the goal to which no hero ever yet at- tained." " Thus," add these bards of Lugano, " thus thy country sings, unknowing, O illus- trious Zeltner, what car of triumph to prepare, or what choice garlands of flowers to weave around thy brow !" What were the distinguished acts of this ex- bailiff, which raised him in the songs of his en- thusiastic admirers above Alexander, or what was the triumph he had merited, such as Athens or Sparta never witnessed, (Non tal vidder trionfo i Lidi Loi Ne Atene, o Sparta, o altra cittade intoruo, Come or ti veggo in si felice giorno ) we were unable to discover the grand secret however seems to have been, that this amiable TITLES. 79 governor had plundered them as little as he could. Miss W. proceeds next to the Province of Bellinzone, " the administration of which," she says, " like those of Lugano and Lucarno, is remitted every two years to a new bailiff." She then gives an account of the installation of a fresh magistrate. " Of the virtues or excellen- cies of the new governor nothing had yet trans- pired, but we were left in no uncertainty re- specting those of the ex-bailiff", Don Francesco Alvisco Wirsch, of the illustrious republic of Underwald, in whose praises we found the bards of Bellinzone even more sublimely tuneful than the lyrists of Lugano. The poets laureat of Captain Zeltner had only raised him above Alex- ander, and made him merely equal to the gods, comparing the triumphs of Soleure, to those of Athens and Sparta ; but Captain Wirsch's poet, raised into more than Virgilian rapture, with " a master's hand and prophet's fire," thus strikes the immortal string : " Exult, break forth in songs O Underwal- den for thy great son returns to his native shores. What an immortal splendor gracefully plays around him ! alike only to himself, ' none 80 TITLES. but himself can be his parallel.' The Holy Vir- gin descending from heaven, takes him by the hand, and bestows on him a profusion of tender caresses. O Underwalden, after Wirsch, the object of our idolatry, send us another soul of celestial mold, for souls of celestial mold are the prolific produce of thy happy soul." " Esulta esulta ; alia tua patria sponda Fa ritorno Ondervald il tuo gran Figlio Quanta luce immortal 1'orna, e circoodo ! Solo a se stesso, e a null' alt.ro il somiglio. La santa Diva, che nal cielo nacque ; Cui s'ergano gli altari e i templi anch' ella Per mano il preso, e lo bacio pia volte : Deh Onderwald, dopo Wirsch, cbe tanto piacqne Un altra par n' e manda anima bella Mille bell' alme hai nel tuo grembo accolte." Such is the style of panegyric with which these subtle Italians attempt to soften the native hardness of their German bailiffs, and seek to wheedle succeeding governors into courteous behaviour, by persuading M. Zeltner, that he is equal to the gods, from whom he descended, and M. Wirsch, that he is like no one but him- self, and the favorite of the Queen of Heaven ! Had these sonnets proceeded from the pen of some comic rhymester, who chose to amuse himself at the expence of the bailiffs, we should TITLES. 81 only smile at the pleasantry ; but when we be- hold the various corporations of these provinces, ecclesiastical and civil, gravely presenting such abject and impious flattery, we scarcely know whether our indignation is most excited by the meanness that degrades itself to offer such vile adulation, or the miserable vanity that stoops to receive it." As this is the testimony of a quondam demo- crat, to the adulatory extravagancies of demo- cracy itself, it deserves a place I think amongst the anomalies of heraldry, or at least, of per- sonal honors and distinctions. VOL. I. ATTRIBUTES, AND SIGNIFICANT TITLES. I CONFESS I have an objection to any fixed titles or appellations betokening any thing of moral worth. How strange it would be to read in any of our foreign journals, that on such a day his Serene Highness Prince Such-a-one, dropped down dead in a passion ! to " Highness" itself I have no objection ; it may bespeak only the Prince's station in civil society. " Majesty" is unobjectionable on the same ground ; denoting, as Selden observes, merely a kind of special dignity, as if we should say in English, a " great- erness" " Majesty," says an old writer, " is the modestest and justest title that can be given to Sovereigns." Royal Highness comes under the same description. There is a beautiful letter extant, from Sir Walter Raleigh to Prince Henry, son of James I., admonishing him to be aware of the sycophants, who called his father God's Vicegerent. " They adjoin," says he, " Vice- SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 83 gerency to the idea of being all-powerful, and not to that of being all-good" " Your father is called the Vicegerent of heaven ; while he is good he is the Vicegerent of heaven ; shall man have authority from the fountain of good to do evil ?" But all distinctions by attributes, whether in the concrete or abstract, are hazardous, and likely to run into incongruities. Of the Ducal Archiepiscopal Title of " Grace" for instance, which is of this nature, what shall we say ? I know what it betokens ; Gratia, decor, Venustas, &c. : but how strange it would appear to say to a Duke or an Archbishop, will your " comeli- ness" " beauty" or "fine mien" do me the honor of dining with me ? I shall be proud to wait upon your " Felicity" or " Becomingness." If the Title imply that the high personages themselves are really " Graces," we fall into greater difficulties; for, mythologically speak- ing, what Duke or Archbishop could wish to be taken for Aglaia, Thalia, or Euphrosyne, the daughters of Bacchus and Venus? with Duchesses it might be different, though Seneca would supply us with an objection applicable even to Duchesses, unless they happened to be so in their own right, de Beneficiis i. c. 3. I was o 2 84 SIGNIFICANT TITLES. amused with the application of the mythological title once to three very great personages, in a message from a card-table. One of the party, a very young man, being importuned to give up his cards, and go into another drawing-room, where there were many beautiful young ladies, excused himself by sending them word, that he could not come directly, as he was playing with " the three Graces ;" who, in fact, were a Duke and a Duchess, and the late amiable Archbishop of , In regard to this Title of Grace, I cannot see why the Lord Chancellor, in his official capacity, should not be called so, as much as the two Archbishops, between whom he takes his rank ; he precedes all Dukes, and if called upon to act as High Steward on state trials, is then actually BO entitled ! but this, by the bye before how- ever I take leave of the title of Grace, as be- longing to our Archbishops, I cannot forbear giving a hint to dictionary makers, in their ex- positions and illustrations of such marks of dig- nity. In Chambers's Cyclopaedia, I find the term Arch, for instance, explained in a very incautious manner; " Arch, from gx oy > prin- ceps, summus, prince or chief. Thus we say Arch-Fool, ArcA-Rogue j so also, ArcA-Bishop, ArcA-Treasurer, Arch- Angel !" SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 85 " Right Honorable 1 ' is an odd title, when not confined to particular individuals. It does very well for Privy Councillors, because it must be supposed that the nation could never connive at the opportunity afforded them of giving council to the Sovereign, under an oath of secrecy truly masonic, unless it might conclude such high personages to be ipso facto, and without all doubt and prevarication, strictly " right honor- able," which seems to be understood, inasmuch as all who are merely and simply " honorable," are excluded from the board, as not being honorable enough of course; It would be odd to call spendthrifts and pro- fessed gamblers, and other loose characters, " Right Honorable ;" so that we may well re- joice, that none of our English " Right Honor- ables" ever are so ! What are we to say of the Titles of " Your Honor," and " Your Worship ?" The former did, till lately, appertain to only one office in the state, namely that of Master of the Rolls. It is now given also to the Vice-Chancellor of England. So appropriated it does very well ; for those eminent persons certainly occupy posts of hwior; and their courts are courts of honor, 80 SIGNIFICANT TITLES. that is of equity, which is but another name for honor, especially when contrasted with the chicaneries of law. Your " Worship," seems more objectionable than your " Honor ;" it can by no means belong to mortals, not even Justices of Peace, though there should not be one Justice Shallow amongst them all ; which in this enlightened age, it is to be hoped, must be the case. In Old Noll's time, who made Justices of butchers, carpenters, horsekeepers, the title must have been a per- fect burlesque, as we may judge from Talgol's irreverent address to Hudibras ; " Thou Tail of Worship, that dost grow On Rump of Justice, as of cow " The Titles of the Clergy, I think, are well enough, as including a hint to themselves : if O ' O * not an absolute condition ! " reverendus" being a future participle, is as much as to say you will be (as you ought to be) " respected, if re- spectable." The Inferior Clergy being thus Re- verend, Deans will be naturally, and as matter of course, very Reverend, Bishops right Reverend, and Archbishops most Reverend. Your " Excellency" is a title of great conve- nience, and may apply to a vast variety of SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 87 people. One may excel in one thing, and another in another ; and these the most opposite that can be conceived ; for to excel means generally only to outdo or surpass ; therefore it is as easy to excel in wickedness as in virtue, or perhaps much easier ; a man may excel in stupidity, as well as in liveliness and wit; in ignorance as well as in learning ; in barbarity as well as in civility. The Due d'Orleans, who suffered in the revolution, came to England once in a diplomatic character ; he was of course entitled to be called his " Excellency ;" and in many things, by all accounts, he did excel; but I never heard that it was either in religion or virtue ; honor or justice ; talents or integrity ; feeling or decency of manners ; and yet nobody could question his " Excellency," if he chose to in- sist upon it : by birth indeed he was a " serene highness." At length, however, he joined the blood-thirsty Jacobins, and his Excellency was at an end ; being unable to surpass them in any of their acts of atrocity, he was content to be upon a level with them, and therefore assumed, instead of either Highness or Excellency, the more modest title of Egalitc, under which title he had the honor to end his days on a scaffold. 88 SIGNIFICANT TITLES. The following distich on this misguided Prince, appeared at the time. " Prince, Roturier, Riche, Gueux, Animal, Voila rEgalitc, qae n'eot jamais d'njul." The Title of " Excellency/' however, is ac- counted a very great one. I believe it was first used towards the end of the sixteenth century ; at which time it was judged to be so high a title, that a Venetian Embassador at the court of France, refused to give it to the Mantuan mi- nister, alleging that it was not fit to give so high a title to a prelate of the second order, while the Cardinals of Rome bore an inferior one, which inferior title is expressly stated to be no less than " most reverend and illustrious lords !" at present their ordinary title is, " your Eminence," (first given to them in 1630) which if we turn to the dictionaries, will be seen to be just upon a par with that of " Excellency." Eminco and Excello being as nearly as can be synonymous. Cardinal Richelieu had the title of Eminentissimus, most Eminent, and we have cer- tainly a title that surpasses even that of " Excel- lency, "as, the King's "most Excellent Majesty." Most excellent used indeed to be the title of the Senators of the Republic of Venice ; and in the SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 89 raguali di Parnasso of Boccalini, it was decided before Apollo, that the Title of Excellentissimo should be given not only to Princes and other Titolati, but to Doctors of Law and Physic. Apollo of course knew nothing of Doctors of Divinity, but how Doctors of Music came to be left out, is quite inexplicable. Heraldry seems to scorn the narrow limits of our three degrees of comparison ; super superlatives are not un- common. Who would ever think that any of our frail race could be over perfect? and yet among the Romans there were not only three degrees of Perfectissimi or most perfect, but all these most perfect persons ranked below the Clarissimi, which was the title of the Senators. The Senate itself being styled ordo clarissimus et arnplu- simus. Senator's wives went two degrees below their husbands, being accounted only personae clam in the positive degree ; perhaps however this was intended slily to intimate that they were generally more positive than their husbands. The heralds, or rather lawyers, both of the eastern and western empires, seem to have ex- hausted all their wits to find titles sufficiently grand for persons of state. I have spoken of the Senate, Senators, and Senators' wives. II- 90 SIGNIFICANT TITLES. lustris (Illustrious) was also a senatorial title, and " specioste personae," did both for the sena- tors and their wives ; being accounted equivalent to clarissinuE as well as clarissirm, and with great reason, for speciosus is so happy a word, as to include all sorts of wives ; signifying, as our common dictionaries will shew, " goodly to see, beautiful, handsome, sightly, fair, and plump, plausible and specious .'" About the time of Con- stantine, " illustris" and " clarissimus," were used to express separate and distinct dignities. The former being superior, and bestowed only on the Patricii of the Emperor's own creation, to distinguish them from the ancient Patricii of Rome ; which, unless the latter were grievously degenerated, was rather a scurvy thing to do, and not very consistent with the rules of he- raldry, which has generally a greater regard to antiquity. But between these two orders of Patricii, there is said to have been an order of " Spectabiles," but who the Spectabiles exactly were, seems to be a matter of some doubt. Below the clarissimi, as I have before hinted, came the " Egregii" and " Perfectissimi" of the first, second, and third order in the concrete ; in the abstract, we find such titles as follow. II- SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 91 lustratus ; Spectabilitas ; Clarissimatus ; Perfec- tissimatus ; Egregiatus ; which is as much as to say in English, your " Illustration" or " Bright- ness ;" your " Perfection," " Eminence" " Excel- lency ;" your " Nobility," " Singularity" " Ra- rity ;" your " Notoriety" your " Speciousness ;" your " Shewiness" or " Renown." All Excel- lent Titles, and for what I see quite as good as Majesty, Highness, Grace, Lordship, Honor, or Worship. But we must not stop here. About Justinian's time there were, it appears, greater personages than all I have hitherto described, even " most glorious" and " super-illustrious ;" " super-illustres" " gloriosissimi," most noble, " Nobilissimi ;" svSol-oraToi. possibly these were all titles of the Casars. Though indeed there were greater titles than even those I have last mentioned ; what shall we say to the following? Magnificentissimi Illustres In plain English, Most Magnificently Illustrious ! ! In the Codes and Authentics we find as a title, " Miranda Sublimitas tua" which is as much as to say, " Your Admirable or wonderful Sublimity." Our English titles dwindle into nothing in 92 SIGNIFICANT TITLES. comparison. We should, I am certain, never think of giving such a title as the foregoing, unless it were to a man in a balloon. The Lawyers of the latter ages had these verses, in which there certainly seem to be one or more anomalies. " Illustris primus ; medius Spectaltilis ; imus Ut lex testatur Clarissimun esse probatur ; Et super-illustris praeponitur omnibns istis." It would be diflScult to say why the " Clarissi- mi" should be below the " Specialties ;" or in the very terms of the Greek or Eastern wri- ters, the AaptflrgwraTOj below the wegjCXeTTTOi. It seems little less than to put the admirable or eminent, above the most admirable or most emi- nent. Probably the subjects of the Empire fell into perplexities about these august titles, for we read that not unseldom, the same person had several of them bestowed on him according to his offices and functions. The Grecian Emperor's own title seems to be the winding up of the climax. It is set forth in the annexed heraldic atchievement. B SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 93 Viz. a Cross between four bouncing B's which bouncing B's or Beta's are supposed to stand for, The KING of KINGS, REIGNING over KINGS ! ! Any body would think that a " King of Kings reigning over Kings," must be Lord of the whole world. Selden has well proved that there never was, amongst mortals, any such person, though the German Civilians would fain have had it otherwise, with regard to their Emperor. The Heathen Emperors indeed allowed themselves to be called Gods ; nay, they styled themselves in their Edicts, " Nostra Divinitas," " Nostra Peren- nitas" and " Nostra Eternitas ;" our Divinity, our Perpetuity, and our Eternity. Tertullian set aside these Imperial Gods with great adroit- ness. I will acknowledge none such, saith he, to be Gods and Emperors too ; for if they be not men, they can be no Emperors. He that calls himself a God, or allows himself to be so called, plainly shews that he is no Emperor. Now, upon this earthly globe, I apprehend it is better to pass for an Emperor than a God ; and Ter- tullian's alternative therefore was likely to bring such aspirers to Divinity to their proper senses. 94 SIGNIFICANT TITLES. In the Epistles of Symraachus to Theodosius and Valentinian, we have the following titles and forms of address ; Your Eternity, Godhead, Serenity, Clemency. Vestra Eternitas, Vestrum Numen, Vestra Serenitas', Vestra dementia ! An- thony Panonnita, a learned civilian of the fif- teenth century, in a letter to the King of Naples, calls him, " Your Prudence," as well as " Your Majesty." The titles amongst the School Divines, were very amusing. The " Extatic," the " Sera- phic" the " Angelical," the " Irrefragable" " One College in Oxford/' (Mertori) says Cambden, " brought forth in one age those four lights of learning, Scotus the Subtle, Bradwardine the Pro- found, Okham the Invincible, and Barley the Perspicuous, and as some say, Baconthorpe the Resolute ; which titles they had by the common consent of the judicious and learned of that and the succeeding ages." Let the present Members of Merton look to this. The titles of the School Divines, are something of a piece with the Christian names of the Puritans, as, Hopestill, Obedience, Faintnot, Bethankful, (which are all to be found in a neighbouring parish re- gister.) More may be seen in Dr. Grey's notes to Hudibras, and in Ben Jonson's Plays ; " His SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 95 Christen Name is Zeale-of-the-land Bysye." Bartholomew Faire. I believe to this day, the Emperor of China is called his Celestial Majesty, being TIEN su, the Son of Heaven, and " Brother to the Sun and Moon." Among the titles conferred upon the Roman Emperors, we may reckon also those of " Sanctissimus" and " Piissimus" most, holy and most religious. Their Empresses also of course were " Sanctissima" and " Piissinue; nevertheless, it is most certain that some of these most holy and pious ladies poisoned their most holy and pious husbands, besides being engaged in many other most unsanctified doings. But this by the bye. I know that I may have still passed over several Imperial royal and noble Roman (or rather Gre- cian) titles, but it would be endless to attempt to go through them all. Next to the Emperor of the East ranked the Despotes, or Seboston, and next to him the Se- bastocrator, and 4thly, as we read the Casar. Sometimes one man was all, as is said to have been the case with the Emperor Basilius, and sometimes they changed places, the Casar com- ing next to the Emperor, like the King of the Romans in the West. 96 SIGNIFICANT TITLES. Like all the other titles however, this of Se- bastos came to be accounted too simple ; and to give rise, therefore, first to a Protosebastus, and at length to a Panhypersebastos ! ! which though very difficult to translate properly, will not, I think, be exaggerated if we call it, " Over and above all Worshipful and August ! .'" Among their honorable dignities we may reckon, Their Great Logotheta, or Chancellor. Logoriastes, or Comptroller. Protostator, or Marshal of the Army. Primicerios and Primaugustos. And if we may judge of titles by their look, strange as the above may appear to an English eye, I think it would have been a mercy, for those who have business to do at Constantinople, if they had continued to the present day. I am not acquainted with the Turkish language, but their titles Frenchified, as I have seen them in a late work, are enough to frighten one out of one's wits. Such a title as Primicerios or Pri- maugustos is simplicity itself, To a yenytchery aghery or djebchdjy-bachy , which is their name for a Commissary ; a topdjy-bachy, Commander of Artillery ; a Counparhdjy~bachy , Bombadier ; or SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 97 a Sam-soundjy-bachy and zaherdjy-bachy , Keepers of the Dogs used in war. But their civil titles are, if possible, worse than their military. What are we to think of A Tchaouchiaskietiby, A Tchaouchlaremyny, And a Briiusk-teskierehdjy ? A referendary, (or ptQepevSapios in Greek,) is called Talkhyssdjy ! It is some trouble in England not to be able to conduct any law process without an Attorney or Solicitor ; but in Turkey you must have an Arzouhhaldjy ! Odd as these appear to an English eye, it would be absurd to suppose they are otherwise than grand in Turkish or Arabic, or generally, that what looks or even sounds base or ridicu- lous in one language must be so in all others. In point of appearance, quantity of letters and syllables, &c. the Turks do not surpass the Germans, who have a way of forming one word out of many, as for instance, the Post of Lieute- nant-Field-Mareschal-General of the Empire, is called Die Reichsgeneralfeldmarschalllieute- nantstalle, all in one word; and these compound derivatives are common, the nominative of the VOL. I. H 98 SIGNIFICANT TITLES. sentence being placed last. We must still for- bear to judge of these things from their mere appearance to our eye, or the sound they may have in our ears. The King of Candy's Drum Major has a title which would read in English as follows, Tamboroo-puram-pectoo-cruo-mohandiram- Frederic " red-beard," would sound bad in English, but Frederic Barbarossa, which is no- thing more, appears sufficiently grand. Boileau has well argued this matter in his ninth reflec- tion on Longinus, where he ably shews that what would be quite low in French, was the very contrary in Greek, as Gardeur de Porceaux, or Gardeur des Boetifs, for instance, (Pig-driver and Cow-keeper, English) would be quite hor- rible in French ; while nothing could be more elegant in Greek, than their 2y/3ting\ &c. &c. >'.>c ; ? Tristram. Shandy need not have made so many apologies as he does, for his father's supersti- tious feelings about Christian names. His re- marks upon the subject are all in the true spirit of antiquity" How many Casars and Pompeys, he would say, -by mere inspiration of the names, have been rendered worthy of them ? and how SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 103 many, he would add, are there, who might have done exceedingly well in the world, had not their characters and spirits been totally depressed and Nicodemus'd into nothing." How sublimely pathetic is his apostrophe to his friend ! " Your son, your own son, your dear son, from whose sweet and open temper you have so much to ex- pect your Billy, Sir ! would you for the world have called him Judas ? Would you, my dear Sir, he would say, laying his hand upon his breast with the genteelest address, and in that soft and irresistible piano of voice, which the nature of the argumentum ad hominem absolutely requires would you, Sir, if & Jew of a Godfather had proposed the name of your child, and of- fered you his purse along with it, would you have consented to such a desecration of him ? O my God, he would say, looking up, if I know your temper right, Sir, you are incapable of it ; you would have trampled upon the offer ; you would have thrown the temptation at the temp- ter's head with abhorrence. '* Your greatness of mind and contempt of money in this transaction is really noble, and what renders it more so, is the principle of it the workings of a parent's love upon the truth 104 SIGNIFICANT TITLES. and conv'ction of this very hypothesis, namely, that was your son called Judas, the sordid and treacherous idea, so inseparable from the name, would have accompanied him through life like a shadow, and in the end made a miser and a rascal of him, in spite Sir of your example." Mr. Shandy appears to have so applied him- self to the now obsolete art or science, (which- ever you choose to call it) of Nomancy or IVo- minomancy, Onomomancy, or Onomatomancy, (for it had all those designations) as to have been able to assign the characters of most Christian names, as good, bad, or indifferent. Jack, Dick, and Tom, we are told, by his son Tristram, he accounted neutral names, " affirming of them, without a satire, that there had been as many knaves and fools, at least, as wise and good men since the world began, who had been so called." Bob was also neutral Andrew some- thing like a negative quantity in Algebra, worse than nothing William stood pretty high ; Numps again was low with him, but Nick was the Devil. If any thing could be worse than Nick and the Devil, it was the unfortunate name of Tristram, " melancholy dissyllable of sound ! which to his ears was unison to Nincompoop, and SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 105 every name vituperative under heaven" and yet, as we all know, through Susannah's scat- terings in her way from her master's to her mis- tress's room, in the dark, this very name became the irrevocable appellation of the Child of his prayers, instead of the grand, magnificent, and thrice ominous name of Trismegistm* Who can help feeling for Mr. Shandy ? I shall for ever revere the memory of Uncle Toby for his frater- nal allowances, upon this melancholy occasion. " For my own part, Trim, though I can see little or no difference betwixt my nephew's being called Tristram or Trismegistus, yet as the thing sits so near my brother's heart, Trim I would freely have given a hundred pounds rather than it should have happened. A hundred pounds, an' please your honor, replied Trim, I would not give a cherry-stone to boot. Nor would I, Trim, upon my own account, quoth my Uncle Toby but my brother, whom there is no arguing with in this case, maintains that a great deal more depends, Trim, upon Christian names than what ignorant people imagine. For he says, there never was a great or heroic action per- formed since the world began by one called Tristram, nay he will have it, Trim, that a man 106 SIGNIFICANT TITLES. of that name can neither be learned, or wise, or brave Tis all fancy an' please your Honor &c. &c." But to return there are some significant titles, names, and attributes, to which I have no objection, as for instance, Alfred the Great, for great he was ; but as to Canute the Great, I doubt ; his speech to his courtiers on the sea- shore had certainly something sublime in it, and seems to bespeak the union of Royalty and Wisdom ; but Voltaire will not allow that he was great in any other respect than that he per- formed great acts of cruelty. Edmund Iron-side I suppose was correct enough, if we did but un- derstand the figure properly ; (for as to his really having an Iron-side, I conclude no one fancies it to have been so, though there is no answering for vulgar credulity.) Harold Hare-foot be- tokened no doubt a personal blemish, or some extraordinary swiftness of foot. Among the Kings of Norway there was a Bare-foot. Wil- liam Rufus, was probably quite correct, as in- dicative of his red head of hair, or rather head of red hair. Henry the First, was I dare say, for those times, a Beau-clerc or able scholar. Richard the First might very properly be called. SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 107 by a figure of speech Caur de Lion, and his bro- ther John quite as properly, though to his shame literally rather than figuratively Lack-land. Ed- ward Long-shanks cannot be disputed, since a sight was obtained of his body not very long ago, but at the least 467 years after his death, and which from a letter in my possession, written by the then President of the Antiquarian So- ciety, who measured the body, appeared to be at that remote period, six feet two inches long. In Rapin I see that these are called Sir- names, but for my own part I think many of them should be denominated nick-names, for they are certainly no better. It may be thought, I did not like to meddle with William the Conqueror, out of some feeling of English jealousy. I shall beg leave there- fore to say, that I need not have passed him by upon any such grounds, being persuaded that it is a vulgar error to fancy that the term Conqueror so applied, originally intended any such thing as that he obtained the dominion over this island by conquest. He beat Harold, it is true, calling himself King of England; but he did not conquer England itself. Had he done so, he would not have stopped to receive 108 SIGNIFICANT TITLES; the concession of particular parts of it, or the submission of particular persons, but it seems he did both ; and very discreetly received as a gift, what he certainly had not, and probably could not have taken by force. The consent of the people to receive the Duke of Normandy as King, was particularly asked at the Coronation, and he was proclaimed King by acclamation " ab omnibus Rex acclamatus." He was crowned by Aldred Bishop of York, with the consent of the people, at which time he bound himself by vow to preserve peace, security, concord, judg- ment and justice among his subjects ; nay he himself adopted very modest titles ; he not only knew himself by the name of William the Bas- tard, but used it in his public Edicts, " Ego Willielmus Cognomento Bastardus" though he was very angry with the people of Alenon for reminding him of it by a sort of practical joke, and certainly a very coarse one. But it will be asked, why call him Conqueror if he were not so ? What else can Conqueror mean ? This may be all very well ; but I shall make bold to say, that those who talk so, know nothing at all about the matter. It is a term as liable to be mistaken, as the term incomprehen- SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 109 sible in the Athanasian Creed ; the meaning of which most people think is as plain as plain can be, though it certainly means nothing like what our common term incomprehensible is held to imply. It does not mean impossible to be un- derstood, as those think who wantonly impugn and even ridicule that ancient and curious formulary, but incapable of being comprehended within any assignable limits. Those who , un- derstand either the Greek translation or Latin original, may easily be convinced of this ; and exactly so it is with the term Conqueror. In English it means what it commonly implies, but as the translation of the Latin term " Conques- tor" it means no more than an Acquirer, as De Lolme, writing upon the English Constitution, actually calls him, " William the Acquirer ;" and an old and respectable antiquarian, Sir Henry Spelman, exactly so explains it, " Conquestor dicitur qui Angliam conquisivit, i. e. acquisivit (purchased) non quod subegit ;" herein agreeing with the good old women who attended Wil- liam's birth, and who having quite a struggle with the new-born brat, to get out of his clenched fist a parcel of straws he happened to catch hold of, (his mother perhaps being literally in. the 110 SIGNIFICANT TITLES. straw) made them say, in the way of prophecy, that he would be a great Acquirer, which hap- pening to accord with an odd dream of his mother, namely, that her b-w-ls extended over Normandy and England, seem to have fixed the title upon him ; though the historical circum- stances before related are certainly a better proof of the fact. I have gone a little out of my way, to explain this title more to the credit of my native country, especially as the French, overlooking as well as ourselves the original term Conquestor, generally call him Conquerant, which has no other signification than that of acquiring by force of arms. When England indeed had submitted, he treated it, as though it had been conquered, which shews that our ancestors did wrong in receiving him so readily ; but it happened a great while ago, and had better be forgotten, than have its memory preserved, as in many places it still is, by the tolling of the Curfew, which I take to be from its history a sad badge of slavery, though Voltaire thinks otherwise, who supposes it to have been merely an ecclesiastical custom, and to guard against fire. But I doubt this. I be- lieve it to have been designed more to guard SIGNIFICANT TITLES. Ill against conspiracy ; and to have been very ty- rannical. The people of Kent should look to this : they boast particularly of having de- manded and procured their privileges to be pre- served immediately after the Battle of Hastings ; and yet in Kent, I have frequently heard the Curfew, at the old hour of eight' in a winter's evening. Strange titles some of the French Kings bore, and which are actually preserved in the writings of the gravest historians, being no doubt, however strange, all just. Charles the bald-pated (there was such another in Germany 875) ; Lewis the Stutterer (there was an Emperor of the East, Michael, who had the same elegant appellation). Charles the Simple ; Charles and Lewis the Fat ; Philip the Fair ; Lewis the Sluggard, or Lazy-bones ; Lewis the Quarrelsome; Philip the Long. 1 question if Pepin the Great, was not Pepin the Little ; le Brefwo.8 his title, and the following verse made upon him plainly alludes to his diminitive sta- ture. " Ingentes Animos in parvo corpore versat." The House of Valois had very favorable names ; 112 SIGNIFICANT TITLES. Good, wise, well-beloved, victorious, &c.: among the Bourbons there have been two Great, one Just, one well-beloved, and one longed-for. I have said that these names, however strange, are acknowledged by the gravest historians ; but in fact, so lately as in the year 1814, when the present King of France was recalled to his do- minions, in the Constitutional Charter, published on his return, he speaks of his royal predecessors, Lewis the Fat and Philip the Fair, as if they were titles altogether as dignified and revered, as Saint Lewis, Philip Auguste, and Henri Qua- tre ! These are certainly oddities, especially in so polite a people. What should we think of GEORGE IV. gravely speaking in his royal edicts of his renowned ancestors, Edward Long-shanks, or Richard Crook-back? Frederic Barbarossa, which certainly sounds very fine when so expressed, was nothing more, as I observed before, than Frederic with the red beard ; but what sounds very grand in one lan- guage, is quite different in others. I remember hearing a person reading a paragraph in the newspaper, representing that the King of Sar- dinia and family, had retired for the summer, to the enchanting and delightful palace of Stinking SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 113 Niggy : for so the Italian name sounded in his ears. The popular historian of the Fortunes of Nigel objected, as he is careful to tell us, to the calling his hero by the old name Duke Hildebrog had assigned to him in his manuscript, viz. Niggle; and no doubt we are all disposed to give him credit for it. The Sir or Nick names of Kings are pretty old, though they do not appear to have prevailed generally, at least such as marked or denoted any particular blemishes. In Rome we have Tar- quinius Superbus, Tarquin the Proud; Antoni- nus Pius, &c. &c. In Egypt, Ptolemy Phila- delphus, (which I suppose bore allusion to some affectionate trait in his character,) Ptolemy Euergetes (the benevolent), Ptolemy Epiphanes {the illustrious). Of the significant titles of the Pope, there is much to say ; at present I shall only observe, that it is odd (in the jumble of languages) that so notorious a Celibate should be a Papa ; XT' E&HMQV as it were ; or in other words, Pater Patrum, Father of Fathers, of which Papa is supposed by some to be an abbreviation ; though I think it purely Greek, from Haimaf (a word rather ill-used by Aristophanes), or VOL. I. I SIGNIFICANT TITLES. which with a small addition might as well re- present the Pater Patrum as the Papa of the Romans. To shew the inconvenience of significant titles, we might be led to conclude from history, that in the long line of Spanish Kings, there has been as yet only one Chaste, Alphonsus the .Second, and that as long ago as the ninth century ; jpne Hood, Alphonsus the Ninth ; one Wise, Alphon*- sus the Tenth ; one Just, Ferdinand the Fourth. But to make up for this, there appears to have been also but one Cruel, Peter, though I think the successor of Charles the Fifth might have made a Cruel the Second. Portugal had a cruel one amongst her Kings, Peter I. but then, {what is odd enough) he was Just into the bar- gain. John II. had the honour of being " Per- fect" I need scarcely say, there was not more than one of these. The celebrated Philosopher, Critic and His- torian, Bayle, got into a scrape with Queen Christina of Sweden, upon certain points of courtly etiquette connected with the subject I am upon. It seems he had called her, in his periodical work, " Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres," Christina without any adjunct. SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 115 An Officer of the Queen's household, (if not in- deed rather the Queen herself) remonstrated with him, insisting that he ought at least to have said Queen Christina, though it was custo- mary enough to say Lewis XIV. or James II. the ordinal numbers attached being in them- selves marks of distinction sufficiently regal. From this charge Bayle was at no loss to de- fend himself, by shewing that it was more dig- nified to use the simple name, in a case where it had been rendered so illustrious, than attempt so set it off by superfluous titles. That it was never customary to say King Francis I. or the Emperor Charles V., but more simply Francis I. and Charles V., and though the ordinals are here introduced, yet the name alone in many cases would be more dignified ; as we should say, Alexander was the pupil of Aristotle, with- out expressly calling him King of Macedon Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian, are instan- ces to the same effect, as well as the father of the Queen herself ; whom, since his heroic ex- ploits in the field, it had been usual to call Gustavus Adolphus with this excuse her Ma- jesty appeared to be abundantly satisfied. The i 2 116 SIGNIFICANT TITLES. expressions of her Secretary or Amanuensis, are rather striking. " Sa Majeste ne trouve pas que ce soit manquer au respect qu'on lui doit, que de ne Pappeller simplement que du nom de Christine, elle a rendu en effet ce nom si illustre qu'il n'a plus besoin d'aucune autre dis- tinction, et tous les titres les plus nobles, et les plus- augustes, dont on pourroit I'accompagner ne scauroient rien ajouter a 1'eclat qu'il s'est deja acquis dans le monde." A case something similar is related of a Gascon Officer, who being in the field, and speaking loud to his fellow Officers, happened to say, as he was leaving them, with rather a consequential air, " I am going to dine with Villars" The Mareschal de Villars being close behind him, said to him, on account of my rank as General, and not on ac- count of my merit, say Monsieur de Villars; The Gascon with great readiness replied, Zounds Sir, we don't say Mr. Caesar, (Monsieur de Cae- fear !) but to return to Bayle. He committed another breach of etiquette with regard to Queen Christina, of which it is curious to see the notice that was taken. In citing one of her letters to a Chevalier Terlon, SIGNIFICANT TITLES. 117 he made it end with the common terms, Je suis, &c. &c. upon which he received the following remonstrance. " Sa Majeste ne desavoue pas la Lettre qu'on a imprimee sous sa nom, et que vous rapportez dans vos nouvelles; il n'y a que le mot de ' Je suis' a la fin, qui n'est pas d'elle, un homme d'esprit comme vous, devoit bien avoir fait cette reflexion, et 1'avoir corrige. Une Reine comme elle ne peut se servir de ce terme, qu'avec tres-peu de personnes, etM.de Terlon n'est pas de nombre." M. Bayle him- self, indeed, was not of the number, as may be seen by her Majesty's own letters to him ; which conclude, " Dieu vousprospere," Christine Alexandre. A man can lose nothing one should think by receiving a blessing instead of a con- descension. But M. Bayle was very unfortu- nate, for he erred again, by calling her Majesty " famous ;" which in French, Latin, and Italian, had different meanings. He was therefore gravely admonished by the Queen's Advocate, to avoid all ambiguous terms in addressing crowned heads. You should select, says his correspondent, in speaking of such high per- sonages, golden or silken words, " des parolles 118 SIGNIFICANT TITLES. d'or et de soye" This master of the ceremonies concludes with inviting Bayle to write to the Queen herself, but on no account to call her Serenissima, " most serene," for it was too com- mon for her ! POPE HOLINESS. I HAVE spoken of the Cardinal's Title ; but I be- lieve the Pope's Title of " Holiness" might be cited as amongst the most flagrant instances of the abuse of significant Titles. I am not going to treat the Popes as they formerly were treated by Protestant writers. They have for some time conducted themselves with far greater mo- deration than their predecessors, and the pre- sent Pope, (Pius VII.) is too well known to us all, to be spoken of with any sort of disrespect. But yet I should doubt whether it befits any man with a triple crown to assume a title which bespeaks such a conformity, not only to the will, but to the very nature of God, as to be entirely detached from the principles and prac- tice, maxims and customs, of this wicked world. How strangely must the title of Holiness have sounded when applied to such a Pontiff as Boniface VIII. of whom it was said, that he crept into the Papacy like a Fox, ruled like a Lion, and died like a Dog ! Intravit ut Vulpes, tegnavit at Leo, mortws est ut Cants and whose 120 POPE. own ideas of that Holiness without which " no man shall see the Lord," stand recorded in his Decretal de majoratu et obedientid, in these words ; " porro subesse humano Pontifici omnes creaturas humanas, declaramus, dicimus, defini- mus, et pronunciamus omnino esse de necessitate Salutis ." That is, in plain terms, that the entire submission of all men living to the Pope of Rome, is indispensably necessary to their salvation ! The Apostle tells us, we must " perfect Holiness in the fear of God ;" Boniface VIII. insisted upon it that Holiness was to be perfected in the fear of man ! And that man, no other than himself, the Pope of Rome ! Philip the Fair of France had the courage to dispute this solemn decree, and to insist upon more liberty being granted, both to himself and subjects, and he wrote to Rome to say so. And what is odd enough, exchanged the title of " Holiness," for that of " Sottishness," for so he actually began his letter, " Sciat tua maxima FATUITAS, &c. !" I would have your great Sot- tishness to know, &c. &c. The Popes would have done better to stick to another title which used to be given to them, namely, your " beatitude," for this is a title POPE. 121 of extensive import, and might express what many Popes have been, without being naturally either holy or blessed ; as happy, joyful, rich, and fruit- ful! Holiness was a title indeed not confined originally to the Popes or Bishops of Rome ; many other personages were judged to be quite as holy in ancient times ; even Emperors and Kings, in virtue of being anointed with holy oil at their Coronation. According to Du Conge, indeed, some of our own Kings have been so called. No wonder that such oily holiness should have slid out of fashion. I trust that the holy Office, or holy Inquisition, as it is called, is likely to take the same turn. I do not much like the Popes' adopted names, if I may so call them ; especially when I com- pare them with their histories. Boniface, Felix, Formosus, Leo, Simplicius, or Urban, might do occasionally ; but what are we to think of XIV Benedicts, (whether we understand by that title blessed or well spoken of) V Cekstines, XII Cle- ments, IV Victors, VII Pii, and XII Innocents ? We have all heard of one Pope Innocent, in those pretty lines on the Infant of Sir Thomas Pope, which, as peculiarly applicable, may not improperly be repeated here. The lines are 122 POPE. said to have been put into the hand of the child when it was presented to King James I. who happened in his progress to come to the house of Sir Thomas, soon after his lady had been de- livered of a daughter. " See! this little Mistress here, - _ . Did never sit in Peter's chair, Or a triple Crown did wear, And yet she is a PORE ! No Benefice she ever sold, Nor did dispense with sins for Gold : She hardly is a se'nnight old, And yet she is a POPE. No King her feet did ever kiss, Or had from her worse look than this ; Nor did she ever hope, To saint one with a rope, And yet she is a POPE. A Female POPE you'll say a second Joan ; No, sure, she is Pope INNOCENT, or none." I suppose the name of the Pope who, accord- ing to Platina, first laid aside his own name on coming ta the Papacy, (Sergius II.) had a bad sound in all languages. It was undoubtedly bad enough in English, being nb other than Pigs-mouth, or Swines-snout ; Bocca-porco. This Pope lived about the middle of the ninth cen- tury. It is not however quite certain that he POPE. 123 was the first who gave up his own name ; Platina I believe is the only authority for it. The three Crowns added to the original Cap or Tiara of the Pope, (which by the bye was a Persian Diadem) are said to have been annexed, the first by John XXIII. the second by Boni- face VIII. the third by Benedict XII. And to represent his Holiness's triple capacity, as High Priest, Supreme Judge, and sole Legislator of the Christians ; a power, pretty well expressed in. the following address of the senior Cardinal at the Coronation, when he places the Tiara on the new Pope's head. " Accipe TIARAM, tribus Coronis ornatam, et scias te Patrem esse, Prin- cipum et Regum, Rectorem orbis, in terra Vi- carium Salvatoris nostri J. C." I wonder they have not found means to add a fourth crown, if it were but to save them from the banter of our English Hudibras ; " For as the Pope, that keeps the Gate Of Heaven, wears three Crowns of State ; So he that keeps the Gate of Hell, Proud Cerberus, wears three heads as well," But some Popes must have been proof against banter, when they could allow themselves to be styled " Your Holiness" for the title itself wa& 124 POPE. banter to such immoral wretches as &c. &c. &c. &c. : and this upon a principle, not only ac- knowledged, but acted upon by some nations, though my memory is so treacherous, that I cannot just at present name them ; but I cer- tainly have read that in some countries or other, it was customary to punish delinquents, of va- rious descriptions, by summoning them to appear before a public tribunal, to be praised and com- mended for the particular virtue most directly opposed to the wickedness, vice, or folly to which they were addicted. The unchaste was praised for his chastity ; the liar for his regard to truth; the drunkard for his sobriety; the fraudulent for his honesty ; the proud for his humility; and the cruel for his tender hearted- ness. In the old and very curious description of Stanihurst, we are told that the title of our friend and acquaintance, Little John, was given him much after this manner, and he cites Hector Boethius as almost an eye-witness to the fact, for he had seen, it appears, one of his bones, " the huckle or hip-bone, of such a size, that beying .suted to the other partes of his body, did argue ihe man to have bene 14 foote long, which was # prety length for a LITTLE John ! Whereby POPE* 125 appeareth that he was called a Little John iro- nically, lyke as we terme him an honest man, whom we take for a knave in grayne" In this way then the title of " Holiness" might reason- ably have been adjudged to the very worst in the long list of Sovereign Pontiffs of whom some were undoubtedly bad enough ; others perhaps slandered by their enemies, for we must not trust to all that has been said against them, as gross exaggerations have been detected. " As Virtue," says the Spectator, " is the most reasonable and genuine source of Honor, we generally find in titles an intimation of some particular merit, that should recommend men to the high stations which they possess. Holiness is ascribed to the POPE ; Majesty to KINGS ; Serenity or mildness of temper to PRINCES? Ex- cellence or Perfection to EMBASSADORS ; Grace to ARCHBISHOPS ; Honor to PEERS ; Worship or venerable behaviour to MAGISTRATES ; and Reverence, which is of the same import as the former, to the inferior CLERGY. " In the founders of great families, such attri- butes of honor are generally correspondent with the virtues of that person to whom they are ap- plied ; but in the descendants they are too often 126 POPE. the marks rather of grandeur than of merit. The stamp and denomination still continues, .but the intrinsic value is frequently lost. The death- bed shews the emptiness of titles in a true light. A poor dispirited sinner lies trembling under the apprehensions of the state he is entering on, and is asked by a grave attendant how his HOLINESS does ? Another hears himself addressed to un- der the title of Highness or Excellency, who lies under such mean circumstances of mortality, as are the disgrace of human nature. Titles at such a time look rather like insults and mockery than respect." SOVEREIGN. stfi vJ." 9* it^*HV-^i - j t 8T rw^ /it! f OUR Sovereigns have laid aside the title of King of France, and I think as things stand, becom- ingly and properly ; though I doubt about the propriety of omitting to quarter the arms, for it was the Salic Law alone I apprehend which ex- cluded our Edward the Third from the inherit- ance ; and if that should ever come to be set aside, and the subjects of the French Crown should have to find an heir of the female line, I know not but the descendants of Edward the Third would be able to make out a very fair title to it. Queen Elizabeth was resolved that even the Salic Law itself should not stand in her way, but that if she could not be Queen, she would be KING of France, for she neither altered the arms or titles appertaining to her regalities. The Salic Law has always been very question- able ; as Montagne observes, it was never seen by any one, " cette loy, que nul ne vit, onques," and if it ever existed, appears not to have been pleaded or acted upon till almost nine whole 128 SOVEREIGN. centuries after it was first enacted. For my own part, I think Edward the Third's claim to the crown was a very fair one, nor can I blame Archbishop Chicheley for advising Henry the Fifth to revive it. I do not at all see why the arms should not still be quartered, according to our own laws of heraldry, as well as the laws of the kingdom, which would have made Edward heir to his mother's patrimonial inheritance. The Courteney family still bears the Dolphin for its crest, though with very little prospect at present of becoming direct heirs to the crown of France* as that crest insinuates. It is odd enough that our heirs apparent should bear a title which in French as regularly expresses Prince of France as their English title does that of Wales ; " Prince des Galles ;" and which is moreover said by antiquarians, to be the most original title of the two, and to point out the close connection between the two coun- tries ; Britain having been peopled from Gaul, and Wales being the true seat of the most an- cient Britons ; so that Wales and Walish, or Welsh, are no other than Galles and Gallish, by a change of G into W, according to the custom of the Saxons. After the dreadful transactions SOVEREIGN. 129 at Paris, on the 10th of August, 1792, when the word was given to efface every mark of royalty to be found in the streets and squares of that city, the Prince de Galles was immediately taken down from the hotel of that name. If our Kings continue the title of Defender of the Faith, (not Jirst granted, but confirmed to them by Papal authority, as well as afterwards by Act of Parliament,) I see no reason for their having given up the title of " Most Christian," which Henry VII. bore, and which was also con- firmed to Henry VIII. by the Lateran Council under Julius II. I look upon the title " Christi- anissimus," to belong quite as much to the King of England as to the King of France. As a su- perlative, we may reasonably say it cannot be- long to both ; but if it be so, it only makes the case the stronger. I believe few people know in fact, that it did ever belong to the Kings of this country. But it certainly did, and I do not see why it should have been so readily aban- doned to a rival. I have been the more particu- lar upon this, perhaps, from a slight feeling of jealousy; for it must be acknowledged that while our Sovereigns were members of the Church of Rome, they were placed below the Kings of VOL. i. K 130 SOVEREIGN. Francel The Emperor, for instance, counted the eldest son of the Church, ' Filius ma* jor Eccle&w;" the King of France the second soni or" Filius minor," and the King of England Filius tertius, or indeed no son at all, but " adop- ftuo*," the .t hird or adopted son. Surely our Pro- testant Kings, when they renounced this parent*- age and brotherhood, had no occasion to continue the rank so arbitrarily assigned to them. They never meant to acknowledge that after the Refer- mation they became less than true Sons :of the Church, setting aside however the Popish gra- dations of first, secondhand third. And this being so in all reason, and " Christianissimus" or '.' Most Christian," having once been a legi* t.imate title of the Kings of England, I think it should rather have been studiously retained, than carelessly abandoned. .Not that I would have it so resumed as to pick a quarrel with France, or to appear a mere act of pride and arrogance ; but I do not see, why, according to the principles of Protestantism, and of our Church, which we publicly avow to be a purfe .and apostolical branch of the Church Universal, i Lady Frances ; being 'a 'Commoner, kis Lordship's rank as the 140 PEERS' DAUGHTERS. .youngest son of a. Duke would be below a Vis- count, while her Ladyship continuing a Duke's daughter, might assume the rank of Marchioness; all depending on the retention or discharge of a 'single letter ; little e for little i! If after mar- riage her Ladyship should choose to call herself by the name of her lord, Lady Francis, she would go below Viscountesses ; if, (which she would have a full right to do) she should retain her own name, and call herself Lady Frances, she would precede not only Viscountesses but Countesses. However the confusion might not stop here. Let us farther suppose that his Ma- jesty should be pleased to call the noble Lord up to the House of Peers, by the title of Baron So-and-so how strange would the state of things be now. By their elevation to the peerage, (for so it must be regarded) his Lordship would absolutely lose one step, and her Ladyship three, in the order of Precedence. I have heard the following case related, as having taken place at a County Ball. When the company were summoned to supper, to their very great surprise, they found the doors of the supper room, suddenly shut against them, and they were for some time excluded without any PKERS* DAUGHTERS, 141 apparent reason. It was at length however dis- covered, that a difficulty had occurred to the Stewards, which of two ladies of quality ought to be led first to the table. It was a case that I verily think might at the moment have puzzled a professed herald. The two ladies had both married the eldest sons of Marquesses, and were also both of them Dukes' daughters. Though their husbands had the rank of Earls, and the titles also by courtesy, they were stilt but Commoners, and in either case their ladies would rank as Marchionesses. They were both therefore above their husbands. But still it would be necessary to find out which was the daughter of the oldest Duke, or if there were any other circumstance that might give rank to the one before the other. It so happened in this very case, that one was the daughter of an English the other of a Scotch Duke. How it was ad* justed I cannot pretend to say, but had the difficulty been foreseen, I am confident the best way would have been to have asked the ladies themselves ; for with persons of such high rank, the assumption of their proper place, depends on circumstances quite independent of them- selves, which circumstances are generally well 142 PEERS' DAUGHTERS. known to the individuals, and may of course always; be acted upon, without the least, chance of giving offence* ; I wish any one would devise a method for quickly ascertaining, who every Lady Mary or Lady Frances, who may have married a Com- moner, really is. How often have I known the company at a watering place, thrown into con- fusion by the sudden arrival of some Lady Eli- zabeth, Lady Sophia, or Lady Harriet. But who is she ? Is she an Earl's, a Marquess's, or a Duke's daughter? Is she English, Scotch, or Irish ? Those agreeable companions the Pocket Peerages can give them no help. There are no indexes to lead them to the name of the hus- band. You may pore your eyes out in looking for all the Lady Elizabeths, or Lady Harriets from beginning to end, and if she be newly mar- ried, not find her after all. The arms on the carriage may help those who understand he- raldry, but how very few in comparison are there who know a syllable about it. NOBILITY. -RH ftooa -?'j > y. ; NOBILITY, the old books tell us, is of three sorts. There is first, Nobility Celestial, which consisteth in Religion. 2. Nobility Philosophi- cal, which is got by moral Virtues ; and 3. No- bility Political. " In the two first classes of Nobility no man can become noble except he be good also. But in the third class, a man, though he be ever so wicked and graceless, may yet excel the rest of men, even in the highest degree of Nobility, as Caligula, Nero, and others did." Now this is all very true, and yet not so bad as it appears to be. For though such wicked men as Caligula and Nero, (Cujus supplicio non debuit una parari Simla, nee serpens una, nee culeas units, as Juvenal says,) did really attain to the very highest degree of political Nobility at Rome, we all know that they were perfect monsters, and the wonder is, not that such exalted personages 144 NOBILITY. should have been entirely destitute of all celestial and philosophical Nobility, but that the Roman people should not have provided better securi- ties against the freaks and caprices of such un- worthy Sovereigns. " Libera si dentur populo su/ragia, quis tarn Perditus, at dabitet Senecam pneferre Neroni ?" Political Nobility in many respects resembles riches ; much must be left to depend on the cha- racter of the individual ; as Terence observes, ^ . , *< Hscc perinde sunt, at illius animus, qui ea possidet, .., Qui uti scit, ei bona ; illi qui non utitur recte, mala" ''*f,'i In fact, they are among the a$joga of the Greeks. Riches are not incompatible with Nobi- lity celestial and philosophical ; neither there- fore Nobility political. Nobility political is only then abused, when it is conferred on those who deserve it not, in the shape and fashion of a remuneration for their very wickedness. As the Romans however have been thus cited to their disgrace and disadvantage, let us in all justice attend to what they say on other occa- sions upon this important point. Cicero had that idea even of political Nobility, that he .NOBILITY. 145 scruples not to assert, that without virtue, no- thing can be truly commendable and praise- worthy. I shall not attempt to bring forward the many passages from this celebrated author that might be produced strong to the point, be- cause there appears to be one place in his works, which suits exactly with the subject of my book. It is upon a point of etiquette ; where he gives Appius Pulcher, who thought himself treated with less ceremony than he ought to have been, a trimming for standing too much upon his No- bility, and plainly tells him, that he ought to have known better than to fancy, that such a man as himself, who had borne the highest offices, and attained to the greatest honors in the state, should care as much for the parade of ancestry, as for the ornaments of virtue. The passage is scarcely to be translated so as to preserve its proper spirit ; but it is to be found amongst the Epistles to his friends, being the VHth of the third book. There is an excellent note upon it by Victorinus in the Verburg edition, which, who- ever may wish to know more of Cicero's opinion upon this point, would do well to read. Among other celebrated Romans, who have expressed their contempt for political Nobility when it VOL. I. L 146 NOBILITY. stands alone, we might cite Ovid, Seneca, Pliny; but above all Juvenal, in his VIHth Satire, who having indeed a most corrupt Nobility, to ex- pose, seems to have been resolved not to spare them in any particular ; " Stemmata quid faci- unt?" says he, with a noble indignation ; NOBILITAS sola est atque Unica VIRTUS ! , if \ 'j ;'jl fe/ A> This is the whole purport of the Satire ; but it is too generally known to be longer dwelt upon, especially as we may rejoice to think there are many parts of it wholly inapplicable to our own Nobility. It is enough to know that he treats political Nobility as a satire upon itself, if debased by any unworthy actions. The Romans indeed are held to have admir- ably expressed their sentiments upon this head, by a sort of allegory, when they so arranged their public buildings as to have no way to the Temple of HONOR but through the Temple of VIRTUE ! as well as in their medals, on the re- verses of which were often to be seen, the heads or faces of Honor and Virtue ; the former over- shadowing the latter, as being outwardly the more illustrious of the two, but yet always to be supposed to rest on the other ; so that where they NOBILITY. 147 beheld any person outwardly adorned with honor, they were thereby taught to expect, that he shold be inwardly endued with virtue. The Romans indeed often used the word Noble, in the sense of Noscibilis, notable or remarkable. What else are we to think of Nobile Scortum, a noble Harlot? Nobile Scelus, a noble Villain? Nay Plautus speaks of persons as expressly Scelere Nobiles, nobles in naughtiness or wicked- ness ; and Cicero of the Vitiis Nobiles so Terence of one who was Jlagitiis nobilitatus, and Pliny of one adulterio nobilitatus. How happy we ought to think ourselves, that the very terms them- selves are strange to us, much more the realities ! The following would be less foreign. Nobiles Equi, noble horses ; Nobilia Vina, noble wines ; &c. Celsus talks of nobile emplastrum ad extra- hendum, a noble drawing plaister ; and Pliny of Nobile Fel Vitults marina, the noble gall of a sea- calf! These expressions, and uses of the term noble, are certainly quite applicable to political Nobi- lity, which of itself must render persons more noscible, that is conspicuous, and should therefore render them more circumspect also. Those who value themselves upon their ancestry, should L 2 148 NOBILITY. know what their ancestors have done for them ; much of which consists in having put it out of the power of those who inherit their greatness, to hide themselves from the notice of mankind, Jet them be ever so degenerate as Sallust has admirably observed in the following beautiful passage ; " Majorum Gloria posteris lumen est, neque bona neque mala eorum in occulto pati- tur ;" the glory of ancestors throws a light upon their posterity, which prevents any thing they do, good or bad, from passing unnoticed. Juvenal indeed has the same idea, and has added some % force to it, by drawing the comparison between the glorious founders of a noble race and their degenerate successors. Incipit ipsornm Contra Te stare parentnm Nobilitas, claramq; faccm prseferre pudendis, Omne animi i ilium tanto conspectius in se Crimea habet, qoanto major, qui peccat, hnbetur. " O Place and Greatness ! millions of false eyes Are stack upon thee ; volumes of reports Run with their false and most conlrarious quests Upon thy doings !" " You know what Great ones do, The Less will prattle of." " For as we see in colours," says an old wri- NOBILITY. 149 ter, " there is none which discovers any soil or blemish so much as white, or as we have observed in the eclypse of the Sun, that it draws more eyes to view it, than the darkning of any inferior light ; so amongst the children of men, though sinne be sinne in every one, yet more noted, and in that more exemplar, in these high peering cedars, I mean our Peeres and Nobles, than in the lower shrubes, whose humble condition frees them from like publicke observance." Heralds will tell you, that once all the three degrees of Nobility concurred in one person ; or to simplify matters somewhat more, that Nobility dative had precedence of Nobility native. They write really very gravely of these things, and yet I fear I shall scarcely be able to quote them even upon sacred subjects, without exciting a smile. . The first commonwealth in the world they tell us was the family of Adam, which " consisted wholly of Noblemen ;" but with this distinction ; Adam's was dative Nobility when he was made ruler over all creatures and endowed with all good gifts ; but his children, who by their birth be- came possessors of the first native Nobility, com- ing into the world, after Adam had lost his ce- lestial. Nobility, became, it seems, (wha.t all No- 150 NOBILITY. bility hath been since) a kind of mixture, of na- tive, dative, celestial, philosophical, and political Nobility. I confess it would appear that, according to the above reasoning, the present commonwealth of the world, consisteth, as well as/ the first, " wholly of Noblemen ;" all of the race of Adam inherit native Nobility, and no wonder therefore there should be, as the Romans say, even noble villains, noble harlots, noble adulterers, and noble sea (nay and land) calves ! But one thing I must have leave to observe ; this native Nobility seems to have come upon the generality of the world nolens volens, as one might say ; they could not avoid it as being of the posterity of Adam ; and may therefore have been less attentive to the fact ; which is hard upon some of OUT plebeians, who may be apt to think they have no Nobility to answer for, and be careless therefore of the graces and virtues, which in strictness belong to all the three sorts of Nobility, and the absence of which our plebeians are ready enough to resent and expose, if discoverable in any of their superiors. Let all below the order of Nobility in our Tables of Precedence, look to this. For " respondere No- bilitate pulchrum est," as Quintillian says, if NOBILITY. 151 they have not dative Nobility, they have of the native Nobility enough to make them responsible for more than they think of. Even Baronets must not expect to escape, who at present, as I shall have occasion to shew, hang as it were be- tween the nobles and the commonalty of the realm ; whether they choose to consider them- selves to be little Barons or great Knights, as the laws of heraldry allow, their titles are clearly dative in a political sense ; while they are de- cidedly heirs to the native Nobility that de- scended from Adam. They have in short Nobility enough about them, to make it very wise in them to be circumspect, as persons set on high, and rendered conspicuous, by the lustre of their an- cestry, or the splendor of their own wealth and greatness. Plebeians may look back to the origin of their Adamitic Nobility with a degree of pride, as hav- ing been of that celestial and philosophical de- scription, as to take place of political Nobility, in all who act up to its principles, as the Poets oftn hint. " I tell thee then, whoe'er amidst the Sons Of Reason, Valor, Liberty, and VIRTUE Displays distinguish'd merit, is a NOBLE Of Nature's own creating. Such have risen Sprung from the Dust." 152 NOBILITY. " What (hough no gaudy titles grace my birth, Yet Heav'n that made me honest, made me mere Than ever King did when he made a Lord." Not that I wish to see such Nobles even as these, so proud as to be presumptuous. Humi- lity is one of the characteristics of celestial and philosophical Nobility, as an old writer has well shewn. " An humble man," says the celebrated Alexander Hales, " is like a good tree ; the more full of fruit the branches are, the lower they bend themselves." Hear that sublime moralist Young ! Dost thou demand a Test, A Test at once infallible and short, Of real Greatness ? Th' Almighty, from his throne, on Earth surveys Nought greater than an hottest, humble heart ; An humble heart his Residence ! pronouno'd His second seat, and rival to the skies. The private path, the secret acts of men, If noble, far the noblest of our lives !" s!)o ( i e/f-i sjj y$f < w uatu Selden's thoughts upon the subject should not be passed by. " Humility is a virtue all preach, none prac- tise, and yet every hody is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, NOBILITY. 153 the laity for the Clergy, and the Clergy for the laity. Pride may be allowed to this or that de- gree, else a man cannot keep up his dignity. In gluttony there must be eating, in drunken- ness there must be drinking. It is not the eat- ing, nor is it the drinking that is to be blamed, but the excess. So is pride." Table Talk. At all events, the sons of Adam being heirs to his mortality as well as to his nobility, to his abasement as well as to his greatness, should above all things guard against any excess in the way of pride ; for, " What's man, whose first conception's miserie, Birth baine, life, pain, and death necessi tie ?'' " This day one Proud, as Prouder none, Maj lye in Grave ere day be gone." " As the High do use the Low, God will use the Highest soe." ; *" Riches shall not deliver in the day of wrath. Perchance they may bring you when you are dead, in a comely funeral sort to your grave, or bestow on you a few mourning garments, or erect to your memory some gorgeous monument, but this is all. Those riches which you have got with such care, kept with such feare, lost with NOBILITY. such griefe, shall not afforde you one comfort- able hope in the houre of your passage hence." Shall beauty deliver you ? No. " Tell me thou earthen vessel made of clay, What's beauty worth, when thoo must die to-day." Shall Honor? No, for that shall lye in the dust, and sleepe in the bed of earth. Shall Friends ? No, for all they can doe is to attend you, and shed some friendly teares for you ; but ere the rosemary lose her colour, which stickt the corse, or one worme enter the shroud which covered the corpse, you are many times forgot- ten, your former glory extinguish't, your emi- nent esteeme obscured, your repute darkened, and with infamous aspersions often impeached." I do not like to leave this subject without some offer of consolation, for it is a dismal one indeed, unless there be deliverance to be found somewhere. The author I have been quoting tells us we have such a friend, if we be but careful to entertain it properly. " What then may deliver you in such gusts of affliction which assaile you? CONSCIENCE 1 Shee it is that must either comfort you, or how miserable is your condition 1 Shee is that con- NOBILITY. 155 tinual feast which must refresh you ; those thou- sand witnesses that must answer for you ; that light which must direct you ; that familiar friend that must ever attend you ; that faithful coun- sellor that must advise you ; that balm of Gilead that must refresh you ; that palm of Peace which must crowne you. Take heed therefore that you wrong not this friend, for as you use her you shall find her ; she is not to be corrupted, her sinceritie scorns it ; she is not to be persuaded, for her resolution is grounded ; she is not to be threatened, for her spirit slights it ; she is aptly compared in one respect to the sea; shee can endure no corruption to remaine in her, but foames and frets, and chafes, till all filth be re- moved from her/' In the 219th Number of the Spectator, there is something so exceedingly applicable to the topic we are upon, that upon the principle I avow, of passing over nothing, that may serve to express my own sentiments more fully than I could do it myself, I shall not hesitate to bor-^ row a few passages from it. " All superiority and pre-eminence that one man can have over another, may be reduced to the notion of Quality, which considered at large, 156 NOBILITY. is either that of fortune, body, or mind. The first is that which consists in birth, titles or riches; and is the most foreign to our natures, and which we can the least call our own of any of the three kinds of Quality. In relation to the body, Quality arises from health, strength, or beauty ; which are nearer to us, and more a part of ourselves than the former. Quality, as it regards the mind, has its rise from knowledge or virtue; and is that which is most essential to us, and more inti- mately united with us than either of the other two." " The Quality of Fortune, though a man has less reason to value himself upon it than on that of the body or mind, is however the kind of Quality which makes the most shining figure in the eye of the world." " The truth of it is, Ho- nors are in this world under no regulation; true Quality is neglected, Virtue is oppressed, and Vice triumphant. The last day will rectify this disorder, and assign to every one a station suit- able to the dignity of his character ; ranks will then be adjusted, and precedency set right."- " Methinks we should have an ambition, if not to advance ourselves in another world, at least to preserve our post in it, and outshine our infe- riors here, that they may not be put above us in a NOBILITY. 157 state which is to settle the distinction to eter- nity." " Our parts in the other world will be new-cast, and mankind be there ranged in differ- ent stations of superiority and pre-eminence, in proportion as they have here excelled one another in virtue, and performed in their several posts of life the duties which belong to them." The Paper concludes with references to " the Wisdom of Solomon," and extracts from that extraordinary book, admirably calculated to im- press upon the minds of all descriptions of per- sons, the changes that may await them in the world to which all are hastening ! U.L ANCIENT NOBILITY. THE Greeks had an odd way of estimating their different ranks of Nobility, after the time of Solon. For before his days, there seem to have been two divisions of the people, in the first of which no distinct place is assigned to the Nobi- lity, nor (unless included under the other terms,) any, for so much as the school-boys button gra- dations, Gentlemen, Apothecaries, Plough-boys, or Thieves. The Cecropian division consisting of, 1. Soldiers, 2. Artificers, 3. Husbandmen, 4. Shepherds. Theseus made three classes of them, one of them expressly Noble. 1. Noblemen, 2. Husbandmen, 3. Artificers ; in which it is odd enough to see how the two latter had changed place's, notjiowever without some consideration, if the following distinctions be correct. " The Nobles," we are told, " excelled the rest in dignity, the Husbandmen in profit, And the Arti- ficers in number." At last came Solon's divi- sion, which was four-fold, and must sound odd enough to more modern and refined ears. 1. ANCIENT NOBILITY. 159 Those who could of their dry and wet commo- dities fill 500 of their measures, he placed in the highest order or degree, calling them Pentacosio- medimni, or as we might say, five hundred or rather 3000 busheled people, (for the Medimnus was about six bushels). 2. Those who could furnish out a horse, and had 300 measures of wets and drys, lirvaSa. riXowrts, or (to make the Greek plainer to ladies, by writing it, as is the custom with some in Roman characters, so as that it should at least look like English, French, Spanish, or Italian ;) Hippada telountes. 3. Two hundred busheled people, in Greek Zeuyirw, romanised " Zeugita." 4. All that had no con- siderable amount of wets and drys, or could not furnish so much as a donkey, rjrer (Thetes.)- Now the three first of these were accounted no- ble, and the poor Thetes all lumped together, as the remaining mass of base and ignoble, till the days of Aristides, who being a Thete himself, procured them admittance into the government ; not however very much to the advantage of the republic, as they soon began to assume too much upon their new privileges, till in the lime of Pericles, they formed almost an Ochlocracy, or Moi-government, and took as much part in ANCIENT NOBILITY. the affairs of the state as the most weighty of the Pentacosiomedimni. The Roman Nobility had but a very scurvy origin, according to their own Poet Juvenal. " tUsijormn primus quisquis fuit ille luorom Aut Pastor fait, ant illud quod dicere nolo." In which he was more than poetically just in all likelihood, for every body knows that Romulus and Remus owed every thing to a shepherd, and as for those that were first gathered together to form a body of Roman subjects, Nobles and Plebeian, nothing could be worse ; parricides, thieves, murderers, and I know not what. Ro- mulus himself, (says Eutropius) was a thief, a fratricide, and a bastard. Surely he might have added something more from the trick he played the Sabines. What does not Justin say of their first Kings ? lib. 38. " Tales," inquit, " Reges Romani habuere quorum etiam nominibus eru- bescant." The Romans however, though sprung from nothing, in course of time, got to pay a good deal of attention to rank, precedence, and what we have since learned to call etiquette. At first their distinctions were certainly extremely simple ; con- ANCIENT NOBILITY. 161 sisting only of Patricians and Plebeians. The Patricians assisted the King in his government, and had the care of the religious rites. The Plebeii were left to till the ground, feed the cattle, and follow trades ; in certain instances, they became individually connected as Patrons and Clients. The Patricii, who excelled in Nobility, and were honestly begotten, and well brought up, bore a gold tablet or jewel on their breasts, and little moons on their feet, that is, ivory buckles, crooked horn-wise like the moon ; to mark as some think the number of a hundred (C.) that being the number of the senate in Numa's time, when the custom began ; other reasons for it have been assigned, as may be seen in Plutarch. After Tarquin's expulsion, there were three dis- tinct orders of Senators, Knights, and Commons ; but it is most to our purpose to notice another division of the people, into Nobiles, novi, and Ig- nobiles, which seems to have laid the foundation, for no small display of personal pride and con- sequence. For as the Ignobiles were wide apart from the original Nobiles, the novi, or new No- bles, were regarded but as a race of upstarts, which has been too much the case in other countries ; " Lords that are ancient," says Sel- VOL. I. M 162 ANCIENT NOBILITY. den in his Table-talk, " we honor, because we know not whence they came. The new ones we slight, because we know their beginning. It is as it was with St. Nicholas's image. The countryman could not find in his heart to adore the new image made of his own plum- tree,; though he had formerly worshipped the old one." I shall not go farther into this subject however at present, having elsewhere cited Cicero's Epistle to Appius Claudius Pul- cher, wherein, while he confesses himself to be a sort of novus Homo, he is terribly severe on those who stand too much upon their pedigree ; but particularly upon Appius himself, whose family had been noted for its pride, and who had chosen to take offence that Cicero should not have paid him so great attention as Len- tuhts, another man of family. Cicero asks, with no small indignation, " Qusero etiamne Tu has ineptias, homo (mea sententia) summa pru- dentia, multa etiam doctrina, plurimo rerum nsu> addo urbanitate, quae est virtus, ut Stoici rectissimi putant ; Ullam Appietatem, aut Len- tulitatem, valere apud me plus, quam ornamenta yirtutis existimas ?" But the whole is worth con- sulting, for its spirit would be lost by an attempt to translate it. I quote Cicero particularly, ANCIENT NOBILITY. 163 because if any had a right to resent the con- tempt cast on him as a novus Homo, -"' ij ;>? :''; ...M rrr ; ?. ;:''':.* .iojj it is probable that most of us would find some, that might, without loss of beauty or conse- quence, be as well represented by the Dragons, Griffins, Wiverns, and Sphynxes of heraldry. There is one extant of myself at this moment, painted by a most indifferent limner, when I was in the lower school at . I hope I shall never see it again, for to the best of my recol- lection, it was as much as possible like an ass, or a monkey rampant. I had much, rather at once be delivered down to my own posterity in the abridgment of armory, viz. Gules, on a fess, 168 ANCIENT NOBILITY. &c. &c. : but I am not going to discover my- self. I shall only say my arms are very chival- rous, and my name perfectly Roman. My arms indeed, according to Guillim, and other authors, " betoken a dexterity and nimbleness of wit, to penetrate and understand matters of highest consequence ;" but they are military into the bargain, " apt and ready to pierce" as the same learned authors are pleased to observe ; and from whence they seem to have worked out the allegory, which does such honor to the intel- lects of me and my family ; for I hope the arms were invented to denote existing excellen- cies, rather than the excellencies invented, to explain the arms. Having spoken of the Jus Imaginum and Jus Annulorum of the Romans, I shall next advert to the Jus Capillitii, which though originally Roman, and the peculiar distinction of the Cin- cinnati, prevailed chiefly amongst the ancient Francs, whose Kings depended so much on the distinction of their long hair, that to shave their heads was at once to reduce them to the condi- tion of subjects. 0e/*tTov yap (says Agathias) TOJ? /3aff(X.Ei/ quod interpretatur trichorachati. Pilos enim habe- bant in Spina velutir Porci." That is, in short, because they had hairs growing down their backs like pigs. Cedrenus has exactly the same pas- sage in Greek. It is whimsical enough, that long hair being among the ancient French so par- ticular a mark of royalty, the King's brother, when there is no Dauphin, should be styled 170 ANCIENT NOBILITY. Monsieur> which from its simplicity, and singu- larity, the French themselves call, Monsieur sans queue. Another distinction of the ancient Kings of France was to seal their letters and public in- struments with white wax, rather than red, green, or yellow, which latter were in common use. : Having given an account of Nobility Ante- diluvian and Post-diluvian, Grecian and Roman, I should now proceed, or rather revert to some of our own titles and distinctions, but perhaps it may be well first to say something about NAMES. NAMES. I QUESTION whether we must look to names for the settlement of any difficulties in regard to rank and precedence, though, in their origin, they were undoubtedly meant to denote some personal distinction. According to Salmasius, the European surnames are derived either from baptismal names, from the names of provinces and towns, from the names of trades and professions, or from peculiarities of person. But there is not one of these cases, which would not now rather lead to confusion than order, for who is to set- tle between our Richardsons and Dicksons, John- sons and Jackscns, Adams's and Adamsons, Cle- ments's and Clementsons, Davy's and Davisons, Ibvans's and Evansons, Roberts's and Robertsons, Stephens' s and Stephensons, Williams' s and Wil- liamsons, &c. &c. &c. ? to say nothing of all the Fitz's, Fitz-Patrick, Fitz-William, &c. &c. &c. : the Welsh Aps and Scotch Macs ? between our Yorks and Cornwalls, Somersets and Wilt- shires, Cheshires and Cumberlands, Derbys, Ches- 172 NAMES. ters, Lancasters, Chichesters, Leicesters, Lewes's, Ryes, Marlows, Wickhams, Henleys, Southwells, Wiltons, Pools, Wells's, Wakefields, Halifax's, Kendals, Barnets, &c. &c. ? Between our Smiths and Taylors, Wheelers and Fullers, Iremongers and Porters, Weavers and Sadlers, Masons and Tylers, Coopers and Turners, Drapers and Dyers, Fishers and Fowlers, Hunters and Gunners, Glovers and Hosiers, Tanners and Tinkers, Butchers and Bakers, Shepherds and Farmers, Cooks and Stew- ards, Sawyers and Carpenters, &c.? Between (as to colours) our Greens and our Scarlets, our Greys and Browns, our Blacks and Whites, our Pwfo and Tawneys ? As to our properties and qualities, between our Longs and Shorts, our Sharps and Blunts, Rich and Poor, Large and Small, &c. ? Who would like to be accounted in society ex- actly what their names import? Foxes, Wolfs, Hawkes, Savages, Bulls, Lyons, Hogs, Herrings, Sprats, Salmons, Tench, Seals, Sparrows, Swallows, (including Martins') Camels, Cocks, Drakes, Crows, Cranes, Swans, Rookes, Nightingales, &c. ? What Lady would like to take rank only as a Hussey or a Trollope ? and where should we place the Potts, Jordans, Buttons, Buckles, Westcotts, and Tuckers? Not that I would be thought in any NAMES. 173 manner to depreciate any of these names. There are classical authorities for them without end. The Romans had their Figuli or Potters ; Vitrei or Glaziers ; Pictores or Painters ; Pistores or Bakers ; and of the very names above enumer- ated, as appertaining chiefly to ourselves, many we know to be now ennobled, and the genera- lity of them, (if not all,) of distinguished emi- nence in the annals of history. Our House of Commons indeed has at different, and no very distant times, numbered amongst its members, A Fox, A Turner, Two Lemons, A Hare, A Planter, with A Rooke, A Miller, One Peel, Two Drakes, A Farmer, Two Roses, A Finch, A Cooper, One Ford, Two Martins, An Abbot, Two Brookes, Three Cocks, A Falconer, One Flood, A Hart, Nine Smiths, and yet but Two Herons, A Porter, One JPwA, Two Lambs, Three Pitts, A Forrester, A Leach, Two Hills, An Ambler, A Swan, Two Woods, A Hunter, Two Bakers, An Orchard, and only Two Taylors, A Barne, One Ryder. But, what is the most surprising and me- 174 NAMES. lancholy thing of all, it has never had more than one CHRISTIAN belonging to it, and at present is without any. I have seen what was called an Inventory of the Stock Exchange Articles, to be seen there every day, (Sundays and Holidays excepted,) from ten till four o'clock. A Raven, a Nightingale, two Daws, and a Swift. A Flight and a Fall. Two Foxes, a Wolf, two Shepherds. A Tailor, a Collier, a Mason, a Tanner, three Turners, four Smiths, three Wheelers, two Bar- bers, a Painter, a Cook, a Potter, and five Coopers. Two Greens, four Browns, and two Greys. A Pilgrim, a King,- a Chapel, a Chaplain, a Parson, three Clerks, and a Pope. Three Baileys, two Dunns, a Hoare, and a JHiwssey. A. Hill, a Da/e, and two Fields. A .Rose, two Budds, a Cherry, a Flower, two Fewes, a Birch, a Fearn, and two Peppercorns. A Stee/, two J3e//s, a Pulley, and two -Ba/z- wisters. Of towns, Sheffield, Dover, Lancaster, Wake- NAMES. 175 field, and Ross of things, Barnes, Wood, Coals, Staples, Mills, Pickles, and, in fine, a Medley ! Some Names indeed would fall naturally into an order of precedence peculiar to themselves, as was shewn in the celebrated jury at Hunting- don, said to be taken at the Assizes, before Judge Dodderil, in July, 1619, and which by placing a comma after the Christian Name, would run thus ; -a/. Maximilian, KING of Joseland. Henry, PRINCE of Godmanchester. George, DUKE of Summersham William, MARQUIS of Stukeley. Edmund, EARLE of Harford. Richard, BARON of Bythorne. Robert, BARON of St. Neots. Stephen, POPE of Newton. Stephen, CARDINAL of Kimbolton. Humphry, BISHOP of Bergden. Robert, LORD of Wazely. Robert, KNIGHT of Winwict. William, ABBOT of Stnkely. William, DEAN of Old Weston. John, ARCHDEACON of Paxton. Peter, 'SQUIRE of Easton. Edward, FRYER of Ellington. 176 NAMES. Henry, MONK of Stukely. George, GENTLEMAN of Spaldwick. George, PRIEST of Graf ham. Richard, DEACON of Catworth. Thomas, YEOMAN of Bentham. The Romans appear to have been very parti- cular about Names, some of which were bestowed upon occasions bordering upon the ludicrous. As in regard to the name Pr&textatus, noticed by Aulus Gellius, and after him, Macrobius, ac- cording to whom, it is represented to have be- come a family name in this extraordinary manner. The Pratexta, it is pretty generally known, was originally the name of the purple-bordered gown, the distinction of the Roman Priests and Magis- trates. These Pr&textati were permitted to carry their sons with them to the Senate, and it was usual, when any great matter was under dis- cussion, to adjourn to a future day ; during which interval, all who were present, were bound to keep what was passing amongst them, a pro- found secret ; the Mother of one Papirius, who had been to the Senate-house with his Father, happened to have her curiosity awakened to know what they had been about. The young man told her, he must be silent, for it was on NAMES. 177 no account to be revealed. For which reason, says Aulus Gettius, (who seems to have known the ladies pretty well) her desire to learn all about it, was but the more increased. The studied silence of her son, excited her to worry him al- most to death with questions and inquiries. In proportion as he resisted, she reiterated her de- mands, till he judged it fair enough at last to set himself free by the following stratagem. He told her the question about to be decided was, whether it would be better for the men to have two wives, or that one woman should be allowed to marry two husbands. This was quite enough for the lady Papirius. Away she posts to all the matronly gentlewomen in Rome, to tell them what was about to be done. On the day ap- pointed accordingly, when the discussion was to be resumed, the Senators were suprised to find all the avenues to the Senate House, thronged with women, in the utmost state of agitation, all imploring (or as some manuscripts would have it, insisting) that one woman should by all means be allowed two husbands, rather than one man two wives. The Senators, says Macrobius, (in which he goes a little beyond Aulus Gellius, though probably not beyond the VOL. I. N 178 r -. NAMES. truth) were not only utterly astonished at what they saw and heard, but c-nf nd-dly frightened into the bargain ; " pavescebatit" is his expres- sion ; till the youth Papirius cleared up the whole matter to them. The fidelity with which he had kept the true secret from transpiring, struck them so forcibly, that they gave him the very name of Pratex- tatus as a cognomen. But for fear other young men should not be so well able to parry the at- tacks, or resist the importunities of the ladies of Rome, they prudently enough at the same time decreed, that the young Prsetextatus should thenceforth be the only person of his age, ad- mitted to their councils. This Cognomen after- wards became a family name. Such honorable titles and additions were in- telligible enough ; but how men of rank and im- portance came to have cognomina of a very differ- ent description, we might be puzzled to explain, if Macrobius had not considered the subject, and attributed it. entirely to accident. We should think Ass and Sow not very elegant names, and yet there were persons of respectability at Rome who bore them ; no less indeed than the Cor- nelian and Tremellian families. The former got NAMES. 179 the name of Asina, by one of the family having agreed to buy a farm, who being asked to give pledges for the fulfilment of his engagement, caused an ass loaded with money to be led to the Forum, as the only pledge that could be wanted. The Tremellian family got the name of Scropha or Sow in a manner by no means so reputable ; but by what we should call in these days a hoax ; and a very unfair one into the bargain. A sow having strayed from a neighbour's yard into that of one of the Tremellii, the servants of the latter killed her. The master caused the carcase to be placed under some bedclothes where his lady was accustomed to lie, and when his neighbour came to search for his pig, undertook to swear that there was no old sow in his premises, except the one that was lying among those bedclothes, which his neighbour very naturally concluded to be the lady herself. How the latter liked the compliment, (or such a cold pig in her bed,) the story does not relate, but from that time the Tremellii acquired the Cognomen of Scropha or Sow, which became afterwards so fixed a family name, as to make Sows of all their progeny, both male and female. It is well that Lord Chancellor Hardwicke's N 2 180 NAMES. most respectable family did not get the same elegant appellation, if the following story be true. Lady H. having ordered her bailiff to procure a sow of a particular size and breed, and which he had long endeavoured to do without success, the man suddenly accosted her Ladyship one day when she had much company with her, " I have been to Royston Fair, my Lady, and got a sow exactly of your Ladyship's size and breed." Every body knows that the great Roman Orator, Marcus Tullius, got the name of Cicero (a name which will live for ever) from a nob at the end of the nose of one of his family, which happened to resemble Chick-pease, in Latin Cicer. The Wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus, was probably only Mistress Lupa, the Shepherd's meretrici- ous wife : as Cyrus's nurse Spdco, which in the language of the Medes, according to Herodotus, signifying a Bitch, gave occasion for the story that that great King was nursed by one of those animals. What happened amongst the Athe- nians, is a good deal to the purpose, and having a direct reference to Names, will bear to be in- serted here. One Leeena, a lady of bad fame, having slain a tyrant, and by so doing merited public honors, instead of suffering any statue NAMES. 181 of herself tQ be erected, which would have been an offence to the public morals, the Magistrates caused the figure of a Lioness, (Leaena, Aeaiva) to be erected in its stead. Corvinus became a family name amongst the Romans, from an odd circumstance that oc- curred to Maximus Valerius, as related by Aulus Gellius, upon the highest authority, as he tells us himself, it never at least having been contradicted ; " haud quisquam est nobilium scriptorum, qui secus dixerit." We must con- clude it therefore to be quite true, that once upon a time, when the Gauls contended against the Romans, and the leader of the former party had offered to decide the matter by single com- bat, Valerius the Tribune having accepted the challenge, was so assisted by a Crow, as easily to obtain the victory : one of those birds having settled on his helmet at the commencement of the fight, and with every weapon he could use, beak, claws, wings, &c. so dreadfully assaulted the enemy, as soon to place him " hors de Com- bat," as the French say. Hence the name of Crow, (which we have amongst ourselves, but probably not for the same reason,) to the ancient family of the Valerii. 182 NAMES. There were Roman names obnoxious to puns, and pretty severe ones too ; as for instance ; a young lady of light reputation having two lovers at a time, one of whom was named Pompeius Macula, (which signifies a Spot) the other Ful- vius, the son of a Fuller,, her own brother re- marked, that he wondered his sister should not be without Spot, having a Fuller so constantly in attendance upon her. Urban the VHIth, whose family name was Barberini, ran into all the extravagancies of Nepotism. His nephews and relatives obtained such power and wealth, and in building of Pa- laces, made so free with the antiquities of Rome, that the following slur upon them was put into Pasquin's hands. ft Quod non fecerunt Bar* bari, fecerunt BABBARINI." The following is not a bad pasquinade, though I must leave it untranslated. A man called CXXao? eiv, to have a name of four sylla- bles instead of two, Simonides instead of Simon* When the late Lord Melcombe, Bubb Doddmg- ton, was appointed ambassador to Spain, having at that time only the name of Bubb, Lord Ches- terfield rallied him upon his temerity in ventur- ing among the grandees of Spain, who generally bore a multiplicity of titles, with such a mffno- syllable of a name, intimating that they would account him but a mere plebeian. The new am- bassador was confounded, and actually per- plexed what to do. Can I, said he to Lord C. lengthen it in any way 1 I think you may, re- plied his Lordship try if you cannot get them to call you Sillu-Bubb ! Voltaire had a stupid fat Friar living with him at Ferney, who was useful to him, and who went by the name of Pere Adam, Father Adam ; 200 NAMES. a Gentleman who was visiting there, happening to get a glimpse of this inmate of so celebrated a house, asked Voltaire if that was Father Adam ? Yes, replied Voltaire, that is Father Adam, but not thejfirst of men. It is well known that we have some regular heraldic puns upon Names in our Peers' mottoes, #8, " Ver non semper viret," the motto of Lord Vernon, and which admits of being rendered, either " the Spring does not always flourish," which is a fact, or " Vernon always flourishes," which may be true or not. " Ne vile veils" the motto of the Nevilles, Earls of Abergavenny, and which signifies, " Incline to nothing base or vile." " Templa quam dilecta ;" the motto of two noble families, the Duke of Buckingham and Baron Grenville. The Duke of Buckingham is Earl Temple, and Lord G. of his Grace's family. The name of Temple descended to them from the Cobhams, with considerable property and ho- nors, so that we must excuse them for crying out, " Templa quam dilecta !" " Temples are delightful, or beloved ;" as it does not mean them- selves so much as their ancestors. " Forte scutum salus Ducum ;" " a strong ;NAMES. 201 shield is the safety of commanders." The motto of Fortescue, Earl of Fortescue, who having a shield for his crest, renders the motto doubly allusive. " Ne Vile Fano;" " Disgrace not the Altar." The motto of Fane, Earl of Westmoreland, one of whose ancestors having married the heiress of an Earl of Abergavenny, may be said to give him a right to the two names of Neville and Fane. Lord Maynard's punning motto, is I think ra- ther far fetched, viz. " Manus Justa Nardus." The maxim however is excellent ; " the just hand is as precious as ointment." The Cavendish family have an allusion to their name in their motto. " Cavendo tutus ;" " se- cure by caution." The motto of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire. I do not quite understand Lord Byron's motto, " Crede Byron ;" " trust Byron." If it is ex- pected to be taken literally, it is certainly no joke. For though all the Lord Byrons in the world should claim to be trusted in this particular manner, it does not follow that we should be secure in placing an implicit confidence in one of them. Perhaps it might be quite the conr 202 NAMES. trary. Those who know more about it than I do, may possibly discover some hidden meaning in it, or be acquainted with some family tradi- tion to which it may or may not apply. I do not know whether any pun was intended in Lord Hoive's motto ; but it certainly seems to answer admirably, as Grammarians would say, to the Question How ? *' Utcunque placuerit Deo ;" " as it may please GOD." " De monte Alto" " from the pitch of Gran- deur." The motto of Lord Hawarden, Baron de Montalt. Lord Hopetown's motto, I suppose, bears an allusion to his name ; " At Spes nonfracta ;" "' But my Hope is not broken." Lord Fauconberg's punning motto requires some attention to find it out ; Bonne et Belle assez;" " Good and handsome enough." I sup- pose the " belle assez," is meant to express, or at least to resemble the name of that noble fa- mily, " Bellasyse" " Deum Cole, regem serva ;" " Worship God, serve the King." The motto of Cole Earl of Enniskillen. " Fare, Fac ;" " Speak, Do !" The motto of the Fairfax family. NAMES. 203 Lord Dunsany's motto, " Festina lente ;" ** Quick without Impetuosity," would have done for the On-slow family. It is originally a Greek maxim, airsv^s /Sga&ewf, assigned by Aulus Gellius to Augustus, to whom the former gives great credit, for having found means so briefly to express a maxim of a very peculiar nature, including, as he expresses himself, both, " in- dustriae celeritas et diligentiae tarditas," a quickness of application, with wariness of pro- ceeding. I wonder Lord Monson's ancestors did not hit upon " Luna cum Phcebo" for their motto, the name (and title now) being so set forth in Wil- lis's History of Cathedrals. " Lunam cum Phcebo jungito, nomen habes." Join Moon and Sun, and Monson you will hare. It should be added, however, in defence of this rather far fetched quibble, that in Saxon, Son is called Suna, and the Sun often written Sonna. Arms, crests, &c. are sometimes regular puns upon names, as in the family of the Dobells a Doe between three Bells ; Veal, three Calves ; Askewe, three squinting Donkies, &c. &c. Lord Grosvenor's crest and supporters being 204 NAMES. Jiounds, are meant no doubt to express the Gros- Veneur, or Great Hunter, which is the true im- port of the name. Lord Courtenay's crest the Dolphin, bespeaks his claim as Dauphin, to the Crown of France. Lord Maynard's three hands, must be the just hands, alluded to in the motto, bearing refer- ence, as has been shewn, to the name and title of that noble family. The bugle horns of the Forresters have evi- dently an allusion to the name and title. Lord Barrymore's arms, whose name is Barry, would in Blazonry stand thus, Barry of Twelve, &c. There is a curious. banter upon Arms in the beginning of the Merry Wives of Windsor, in which Shakspeare is supposed to have gratified his revenge against the prosecutor of his youth, Sir Thomas Lucy. " Slender. A gentleman born, Master Parson, who writes himself Armigero. All his successors gone before him have don't ; and all his ancestors that come after him may ; they may give the dozen white luces in their coat. t * ' - ^ " Shallow. It is an old coat. " Evans The dozen white lowses do become NAMES. 205 an old coat well ; it agrees well passant ; it is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love." Shakspeare seems to have taken this idea from the following story in Stanihurst's History of Ireland, in Hollinshed, 1577. It is related of one Sir William Wise. " Having lente to the King (Henry VIII.) his signet to seale a letter, who having powdred eremites engrayl'd in the seale, why how now Wise, quoth the King, What? hast thou lise here ? and if it like your Majestic, quoth Sir William, a louse is a rich coate, for by giving the louse, I part armes with the French King, in that he giveth the Jloure de lice. Whereat the King heartily laugh'd, to heare how pretily so byting a taunt, (namely, proceeding from a Prince) was so sodaynely turned to so pleasaunte a con- ceyte." Shakspeare was fond of Hollinshed's History. In Dr. Stock's Life of the late Dr. Beddoes, he gives us the following extract from the com- mon-place book of the latter. NAMES. The force of genius preserves a wri- ter against certain faults of taste. Shakspeare calls scarce any of his characters by adjectives expressive of the character he means to paint, NAMES. except Shallow and Slender. The vulgar author of the Pilgrim's Progress vulgarly labels all his. It is a miserable shift to help out deficiency in dramatic drawing and colouring. It should be left to the reader to find out the proper epithet. The name and nature of different members of a family are put sadly at cross-purposes. If the hypocrite hero of the School for Scandal is to be baptized Joseph SUEFACE, his brother ought to have stood in the dramatis persona as Charles BOTTOM. This is certainly not a bad remark. Nothing but m'cA'-names in the way of characteristics will do for members of the same family. I have heard of two brothers, whose modes of speech and voices were so different, that their school- fellows chose to distinguish them as BUBBLE and SQUEAK. However, Dr. Beddoes was wrong in fancying that to adopt descriptive names in dramatic en- tertainments was below the pitch of genius, for it was precisely the case with both Terence and Menander, as may be easily seen by turning to the lists of the Fabula Interlocutores, or Dramatis Persons, in the Delphin Edition of Terence's Plays. NAMES. 207 In Mr. Southey's Life of Wesley, there is a curious extract from the Armenian Magazine, which is intended, I apprehend, to set forth the spirit and disposition of the opposite or Calvinis- tic party. It is stated to be the examination of Tilenus before the Triers, written by one who was present at the Synod of Dort, The names of the Triers are quite in the Bunyan stile. They are, Dr. Absolute, Chairman. Mr. Fatality ; Mr. Pr&terition ; Mr. Fry-babe ; Mr. Damn-man ; Mr. Narrow-grace ; Mr. Efficax ; JVIr. Indefectible ; Dr. Cotifidence ; Dr. Dubious ; Mr. Meanwell; Mr. Simulans ; Mr. Take-o '-Trust; Mr. Know-little ; and Mr. Impertinent. King James the first being present at some solemn disputations held in the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews, chose to testify his satisfaction by a string of puns on the names of the Exhibitors, and which he thought so witty, that he caused them to be turned both into Eng- lish and Latin verse. These royal puns have never fallen in my way. CHRISTIAN NAMES. WHATEVER difficulties may exist as to Sir, or Sur-names, there seems to be a particular rank and consequence attached to Christian Names, which deserves some notice; especially as there has been a variation in regard to them. Formerly abbreviated names appear to have been most polite. The highest personages in the land would call their untitled sons, Bill and Billy ; Bob and Bobby ; Jack and Jacky ; Ned and Neddy ; and even their titled daughters, Lady Betty instead of Lady Elizabeth ; Lady Jenny instead of Lady Jane ; and Lady Fanny for Lady Frances. But now we never hear of a Lady Betty or a Lord Harry, but all the beau monde are Henrys and Elizabeth; Johns and Janes; Frances's and Edwards. Poets and others used, (studiously as it would appear) to shorten the names of their mistresses and favorites, as the following curious passage, from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, will serve to shew. Speaking of the great changes wrought by time in love matters, " After CHRISTIAN NAMES. 209 marriage," says he, " when the black oxe hath trodden on her toe, she will be so altered and wax out of favor, thou wilt scarce know her. One grows too fat, another too lean; modest Madge; pretty pleasing Peg; sweet-singing Susan; mincing merry Moll; dainty dancing Doll; neat Nancy; jolly Jenny; nimble Nell; kissing Kate ; bouncing Besse, with black eyes ; fair Phillis with white hands ; fiddling Frank ; tall Tib ; slender Sib ; will quickly lose their grace, grow fulsome, heavy, dull, and out of fashion." This account, of which the attempt at alliteration is not the least curious part, may be considered as about 200 years old ; but much lower than that, the full name in many instances, was accounted vulgar and plebeian, the shortened noble and genteel. This change among the gentry, upon the prin- ciple of High Life below Stairs, has led to sad confusion in the Servants' Hall, &c. Our maid servants will no longer condescend to be Bettys and Mollys, and Sallys and Jennys, as they used to be ; though it should be attended with ever so much confusion to call them otherwise. Nay, if their masters or mistresses make a point of calling them so, yet it is fifty to one if any of VOL. I. P 210 CHRISTIAN NAMES. their fellow servants dare do so, or will do so, in consideration of their own rights and pri- vileges. Betty or Betsy, fanny or Molly , in the nursery, or bedchambers, is sure to be Elizabeth or Eliza, Frances and Mary in the servants' hall and kitchen, if not indeed Miss Elizabeth, Miss Frances, &c. Amongst the upper servants, even the full Christian Name is not sufficiently digni- fied ; but they must all be called by their Sur- names, and for grandeur-sake, their lords and ladies, masters and mistresses like to have it so> though they care not to what extent they Dolly and Betty all the inferior servants, which I think very hard; especially as the latter, since the Christian Names have been dispensed with, are obliged to Mr. and Mrs. the Butler and House- keeper into the bargain. Some of our short Names are, it must be admitted, extremely in- elegant ; Bob, Bill, Dick, Numps, Tom, Nick, &c. Moll, Bett, Sail, Madge, &c. The Spectator complained long ago, that our proper Names, when familiarized in English, generally dwin- dle into monosyllables, whereas in other modern languages, they receive a softer turn, and ac- quire an additional syllable or two. As Jack, in French Janot, and Nick, in Italian Nicolini CHRISTIAN NAMES. perhaps some help of this sort would reconcile our servants to the distinctions required. Our Mollys, for instance, might bear to be called Mollininas; our Sallys SaUinettas ; our Fannys Fanciullas ; or OUT Madges Margarettas. It ils amazing of what importance these things are become, and how necessary a Master of the Ceremonies is to a Servants' Hall ; nay, more, than a Master of Ceremonies, a Garter King, a Great Chamberlain, or Earl Marshal, to arrange things as they should be. A lady of my acquaintance in the country, lost^a*!- admirable cook some time ago, entirely be-' cause she happened to decide against her in an appeal from the dairy-maid, who refused to let the new cook sleep on the right side of the- bed ; which is much of a piece with the story in Sir Roger L'Estrange's ^Esop, of a gentleman thief, under sentence of death for a robbery on the high-way, petitioning for the right side of the cart on his way to the place of execution. -" Having alluded to the jealousies of servants on subjects of place and importance, I shall beg leave to introduce here, (though rather out of place,) the following stories. Nothing is held to be more insufferably de- p 2 212 CHRISTIAN NAMES. grading to modern servants, than to be told to do any thing, however trivial or easy, that does not strictly belong to their place, or to use words of their own, which they were " not hired to do." A living person of no small notoriety and eminence, inadvertently once, and being in a hurry, told his coachman to bring him a. jug of water. The coachman not having been hired to bring his master jugs of water, passed the order on to the first fellow-servant he met, who hap- pened to be the cook; but it was no more the cook's place to fetch water for her master, than the coachman's, and so no water was fetched. The master becoming impatient, and seeing the coachman before his window, enquired why he had not brought him the jug of water he ordered. I told the cook to fetch it, Sir, said the coach- man ; and why then did not the cook bring it, said the master ? Because, Sir, she said it was not her place to do it, replied the coachman. The master therefore ordered the carriage to be got ready ; which being indisputably the coach- man's business, he immediately did as he was ordered, and had the coach at the door in less than ten minutes. When the master saw it, now, says he to the coachman, be so good as to CHRISTIAN NAMES. 213 drive to the kitchen door, and carry the cook in the carriage to the pump, and manage to bring back between you, after your morning's excur- sion, a full jug of water, or else both of you quit your places directly. By this expedient he ma- naged to obtain what he wanted, though it must be acknowledged in rather a round about way. I remember being visiting once at the house of a noble Peer, when his Chaplain, a very wor- thy good man, called me aside to see the dinner carried into the servants' hall. It was conveyed on many hand biers, having the cook at the head with an immense carving knife in his hand, and in proper costume. The Chaplain desired me to look at the dinner, which I did, and had ample means of seeing that it was in all respects as good as any gentry in the kingdom would wish to have placed before them : but the Chap- lain told me, it had been the subject of many memorials to the Peer, full of complaints, that it was not such as the servants had a right to expect. I could not comprehend his meaning. I said, I saw every thing that could constitute a good plain English dinner, and that it was ut- terly impossible for me to conjecture the grounds of their complaints, or what the wants could be CHRISTIAN NAMES. which they insisted upon. He then told me, that the memorials stated, that it was a hardship to them, never to have any thing for their dinners, except mutton, beef, veal, iamb, pork, puddings, pies, and vegetables /This was literally the case ; and I then discovered that it all arose from a jealousy between the lower and the upper ser- vants, and that the real complaint of the former amounted to this, that in the servants' hall, they never had, what was often had at the first, or upper servants' table, venison, Jish, soups, and game!! ;<>O3 s The following I had from the mouth of the noble Peer himself. It was the custom annually to lay upon his table the cellar account, in which the consumption of different wines was noted in distinct columns, and the whole amount collected at the foot. His method was merely to compare the sums total with those of the pre- ceding year, and to notice any glaring discre- pancy. The difference in the year alluded to, amounted to more than a thousand bottles. He of course judged it necessary to ask the Butler, (as, honest a man perhaps as could be found in such a situation) how this could have happened ? observing, that he was not aware that there had CHRISTIAN NAMES. 216 been more company than usual. The Butler paused, not knowing at first to what to impute so large an excess, but at length plainly said, " per- haps, your G ce, more servants were ill this year than common, or they had more friends come to see them." I tell these .stories to shew the state and con- dition of great houses ;. the torment of great riches ; and I may add, the Wisdom of Solomon) who, living in a palace, found it to be but too true, that " when goods increase, they are in- creased that eat them; and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes ?" When Lord ^North was Prime Minister, he was expected upon a visit at one of the greatest houses in the kingdom. The private character of this amiable Nobleman was generally known to be such, as not only to attach to him many friends, but in the severest political struggles, often to disarm his most strenuous opponents. Before his arrival, however, at the great house where he was -expected, it was discovered that the servants of the house were all up in arms fcbout hig coming, and that he appeared to be the most unwelcome guest that could have been 216 CHHIST1AN NAMES. invited. The curiosity of his noble friend was excited, to ascertain if possible the grounds of so extraordinary a dislike ; but it was not till after the visit had taken place, that the mystery was unravelled. It was then found, that it all arose out of the measures adopted by his Lord- ship to regulate the tax upon soap. That in the calculations laid before Parliament, he had esti- mated the consumption of that necessary article, in great houses, so low, as to hurt the feelings of all the laundry maids in such establishments. What hurt the feelings of the laundry maids, of course hurt the feelings of the footmen ; what hurt the feelings of the footmen affected the housemaids, and spread from them to the nur- sery ; from the nursery it passed to the butler's, and from thence to the housekeeper's room, till at length, the Minister had not one friend left amongst them all. To return to Christian Names. The following story, taken from the Menagiana, and dressed up in Sterne's fashion, is well cal- culated to shew their importance. " As Francis the First of France was one win- terly night warming himself over the embers of a wood fire, and talking with his first Minister CHRISTIAN NAMES. 217 of sundry things for the good of the State it would not be amiss, said the King, stirring up the embers with his cane, if this good under- standing betwixt ourselves and Switzerland was a little strengthened. There is no end, Sire, replied the Minister, in giving money to these people ; they would swallow up the treasury of France. Poo, poo, answered the King there are more ways, Mons. le Premier, of bribing states, besides that of giving money I'll pay Switzerland the honor of standing Godfather to my next child ! Your Majesty, said the Minis- ter, in so doing, would have all the Gramma- rians in Europe upon your back ; Switzerland, as a Republic being a female, can in no con- struction be Godfather. She may be Godmother, replied Francis, hastily so announce my inten- tions by a courier to-morrow morning. " I am astonished, said Francis the First, (that day fortnight) speaking to his Minister as he entered the closet, that we have had no answer from Switzerland. Sire, I wait upon you this moment, said Mons. le Premier, to lay before you my dispatches upon that business. They take it kindly, said the King. They do, Sire, re- plied the Minister, and have the highest sense 218 CHRISTIAN NAMES of the honor your Majesty has done them but the Republic, as Godmother, claims her right in this case, of naming the child. " In all reason, quoth the Kingshe will christen him Francis, or Henry, or Lewis, or some name that will be agreeable to us. Your Majesty is deceived, replied the Minister I have this hour received a dispatch from our Re- sident, with the determination of the Republic, on that point also. And what name has the Republic fixed upon for the Dauphin? Shadrach, Mesech, Abednego, replied the Minister. By St. Peter's girdle, I will have nothing to do with the Swiss, cried Francis the First, pulling up his breeches, and walking hastily across the floor. Your Majesty, replied the Mini&ter, calmly, cannot bring yourself off. Well, pay them in money, said the King. Sire, there are not sixty thousand crowns in the treasury, an- swered the Minister. I'll pawn the best jewel in my crown, quoth Francis the First. Your Majesty's honor stands pawned already in this matter, answered Mons. le. Premier. Then, JVlons. le Premier, said the King, by we'll go to war with 'em." \i\\Ui bootev>l>nn iijr/.'jyj-bti I .HI tftttpu&Ti orfT .noil MARQUESS. IT is but a short time since our English Mar- quesses got to spell their titles properly ; or re- sumed at least the ancient mode. I believe the presentD. of M h, when Marquess of B d, was among the first who tried to revive the old mode of writing it. Marquis was always ob- jectionable, as being much more French than English; and though a high title in the former country, much more common there than with us. A sort of travelling title also, I should presume, from the phrase amongst them, f< se Marquiser," to assume the title of Marquis ; nay, I should scarcely attempt to say, what the title might not include, according to the character assigned to it by the Diable Boiteaux, when speaking of the forms he assumed ; " J'empruntai ceux d'un petit Marquis Francois pour me faire aimer brus- quement ;" and again, " Car dans le commerce de Famonr, les Marquis sont des Negocians qui ont grand credit sur la place." The pronunciation moreover of the words inFrench and English being 220 MARQUESS. so different, might be reckoned another objec- tion. The Marquess is, I believe, well understood to represent the prases limitaneus of the Romans ; the German Marck-grave Comes or Count of the Frontiers; for Grave or Graffe is equivalent to the Latin Comes, and is thus annexed as a title to many other words ; as, Landgrave Count of the Provinces. Burgrave, Count of Cities, Castles, or Fortresses ; Pfaltsgrave, Count Palatine; Rhin- grave, Count of the County of the Rhine. The Mark-grave therefore was the title of the Count of the Frontiers, from Marken, Mark, March, or limit; whence the French term Marquiser to border upon or be adjoining to. Marozm well enough expresses this amongst the French, but amongst ourselves Marquess undoubtedly is the oldest way of spelling the title ; which if it do not so exactly express the Marckgrave of the Germans and Dutch, or the Latin Marggravius or Marchio, nearly resembles the Spanish Mar- quez, the Italian Marchese, and most of all, per- haps, the (j.otfx.taios and /^a/jxE^ivw, Marquess and Marchioness of the later Greeks. I hope this will come then to be generally adopted again, which is not the case at present, many of our newspapers still having it Marquis, and I am MARQUESS. 221 sorry to say, I find it invariably spelt so even in the Court or Royal Kalendar for 1823 ! Before it became a distinct title with us, (which happened in the reign of Richard II. Robert Vere being made Marquess of Dublin,) it was sometimes given to Earls and Barons, if they happened to be Lords of the Frontiers ; which plainly, I think, proves its true meaning and derivation, in contradiction to those who have talked about its being derived from an old Celtic word, signifying to ride ; from whence also they would have us believe the Marcomanni had their name, as a people who excelled in horsemanship. The fact seems to be, that in the Celtic, there was a word from whence the Latin term Marchio might be said to be derived, signifying " Pr i ->b as ni ;br>0 jui;Al BISHOPS. SOME confusion arises from the mode adopted by our Bishops of using the ancient Latin appel- lations of their Sees, instead of the -English modern ones. What country gentleman would know at first sight, that C. Cantuar meant His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury ? A country apothecary shewed me some time ago, a note he had received from a true John Bull, to the following effect. " My wife's stomach is no better, and she wants more physic. Send it soon and safe, with plain directions, and none of your Latin stuff. My people can scarcely read English, and how are they to understand what you mean by your Anodynes and Analeptics, Sudorifics and Laxa- tives ?" " Ma'am," says Dr. Fossile to Mrs. Lovelight in the Plain Dealer, " I have ordered Mr. What's- his-name, your spouse's apothecary, to phlebo~ tomise him to-morrow morning. To do what 224 BISHOPS. with me ? cried my poor husband, starting up in his bed ; I will never suffer it. No, I am not, I thank God, in so desperate a condition as to undergo so damnable an operation as that is. As what is ? my dear, answered I, smiling ; the Doctor would have you blooded. As for bleed- ing, replied he, I like it well enough ; but for that other thing he ordered, I will sooner die than submit to it." Surely our Bishops run a risk of puzzling plain people quite as much by their signatures and subscriptions. E. Ebor bears still less resemblance to the modern title of the Archbishop of York, than C. Cantuar to that of Canterbury. Dunelm is not much like Durham, and Winton for Win- chester, has, as I am informed, actually occa- sioned a ridiculous blunder but a short time ago. A very eminent bookseller in London having received intimation from the present Bishop of his intention to publish the Life of Mr. Pitt, paid no attention to the letter, till mentioning to a third person that he had received proposals to that effect, from a person he knew nothing about, one " Mr. George Winton, 1 ' he was not a little confounded to be told, that Mr. George BISHOPS. 225 Winton was no other than the very eminent Prelate above mentioned. Something of the like nature, I am told, hap- pened to his Lordship of S y, who when the the late much-lamented Princess Charlotte la- boured under an indisposition, sent frequent writ- ten enquiries to her Scotch Physician, signing him- self J. Sarum. The Physician unversed in these episcopal conundrums, observed to a friend, that he had been much pestered with notes, from " one Jean Saaroom, whom he ken'd nothing aboot. 1 tak nae notice o' the fellow" said he. Vigorn for Worcester. Roffiensis for Rochester. or Exon for Exeter, might at the least have puzzled him as much but after all it is not general ; their Lordships of London, Oxford, Hereford, and several others, write plain English. The present Bishop of Ro- chester, indeed, franks his letters Rochester, but it was not so with some of his predecessors. I could never make out why we are said to have Archbishops (or rather one Archbishop) " by divine Providence" and Bishops only " by divine Permission. 1 ' Surely the one includes the VOL. I. Q 226 BISHOPS. other. According, however, to the present mode of distinction, it looks as if Bishops being per- mitted, it was judged to be very providential that there should be an Archbishop to overlook even the overlookers or overseers themselves (esnffxcwroi). This I don't like. We seem to have entirely done with suffragan or assistant Bishops, though I believe the statute concerning them is still in force. Few persons probably know that as the act runs, there might be a Bishop of Thetford, a Bishop of Ipswich, Col- chester, Dover, Guilford, Southampton, Taunton, Shaftsbury, Molton, Marlborough, Bedford, Lei- cester, Glocester, Shrewsbury, Bristow, Penreth, Bridgewater, Nottingham, Grantham, Hull, Hun- tingdon, Cambridge, Pereth, Berwick, St. Germains, and the Isle of Wight. These Bishops are not entitled to seats in the House of Lords indeed, but in public assemblies would have a right to rank immediately after the Lay or Temporal Peers. Authors are often exposed to difficulties in citing the works of particular Bishops, when they happen to have written on the same subjects. Ap the late and present Bishops of St. David's for instance ; nay, we might add even the, cele- brated Dr. Bull. They should I think in such BISHOPS. 227 cases be always distinguished by their names; as Bishop Horsky, Bishop B -ss, &c. It may not appear quite so courtly or decorous, but ill some respects is almost necessary. Many very learned men have been almost annihilated by the practice of latinising their names, in works of great celebrity. Who, that was not in the secret, would dream that Thuanus was the President de Thou; Salmasim M. Saumaise ; Vallemontanus M. de Vaudemont ; Calvin or Calvinus M.Cduvin; Clericus Le Clerc, &c. &c. ? But this is not quite so bad as absolutely' translating the original name, which has been sometimes done, and carries us as far from the mark, as if the cele- brated Author of the Preface to Bellendenus had chosen to call Mr. Fox Vulpes, Mr. Pitt Fossa, and Lord North Boreas, Aquilo, or Septentrio. ^ I recollect being told of one of our learned countrymen who had distinguished himself by a valuable edition of a Greek Classic, with Anno- tations, being turned aside from his purpose, of engaging further in suck undertakings^ by the ridicule passed upon, him, in consequence of the attempt of foreigners to latinise his name in their citations and references : and though I O forget the name they gave him, I well remember Q 2 228 BISHOPS. it to have been one, which as an English nick- name was indeed extremely absurd. In Mr. Southey's Life of Wesley, there is a good story told of a Controversialist, of the name of Newcomb, who by way of blind, and to shew his knowledge of the French tongue, called himself Peigne- neuve ; a witty adversary taking advantage of the opportunity so fairly afforded him of reta- liating upon him, for his want of good manners, took care in his replies, constantly to call him Mr. Pig-enough. In Murphy's Travels in Por- tugal, 1795, we are told that it is common with the Portuguese to translate the surnames of strangers, if they bear any allusion to substan- tives or qualities. Mr. Wolf they call Senor Lobo ; Mr. Whitehead, Senor Cabeca Bianca, &c. The ancient Irish had the same custom, nor is it unusual in the southern provinces at this day. But to return to the Bishops. Few people are aware, I apprehend, that the King and Queen of England, wherever the Court may be, are specially and peculiarly, parishio- ners of his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Bishop of London is the Archbishop's pro- vincial Dean ; the Bishop of Winchester his Sub- Dean ; the Bishop of Lincoln his Chancellor ; and BISHOPS. 229 the Bishop of Rochester his Chaplain. Among the Bishops, three have precedence, the Bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester. But why has not the second the rank of an Earl; for he is undoubtedly Earl of Sedberg ? Nay, his Bi- shopric is a Principality, and his County, Palatine. He appoints the High Sheriff, and might wear a sword, like the Knight in the arms of his Bi- shopric, who has, according to Chamberlayne, in one hand a naked sword, and in the other a Church. (Church militant with a witness!) not much unlike the insignia of John of Leyden, who as King of Leyden, chose to have a bible carried on one side of him, and a sword on the other. BISHOPS' LADIES. It seems very odd to me, (but I presume not to speak in the way of remonstrance) that a Bishop's wife should have no distinction at all. The learned Selden, in his Table-talk, (I quote from memory) compares a Bishop's wife to the clog or weight at the end of a monkey's chain. The monkey climbs to the top of the wall, while the clog remains at the bottom. But why should it be so ? The Clergy of England are no longer 230 BISHOPS. Celibates, and we need not surely practise a deception to make them appear so ? The Bishop is said to be married to his See, or in honest John Guillim's terms, " knit in nuptial bands of Jove and .tenderness to his Cathedral Church." Nay, the armorial bearings on their carriages, still denote such marriages and no other ; and it is indeed upon record, that some Bishops, as Bi- shops Bedell and Berkeley in particular, have refused to be divorced from such their wives, even by the tempting lure of a translation. But in fact, as the case stands at present, the very respect- able persons who occupy the situation of Bishops' wives, are, as it were by these customs publicly denounced. To use a vulgar expression, they seem set aside as a sort of left-handed wives. Nay, worse than that ; even driven from the sinister side of the impalement, which in al- most all other instances, of Baron and Femme, (iheraldically speaking,) belongs to the latter. And this in one of the very first of the reformed Churches ! Why is this ? Are we not reformed ? are we not Protestants ? are we ashamed of what we have done, and is the Celibacy of the Clergy a point not yet actually given up ? I have no objection to the official seal, in this BISHOPS. 231 ft case, as in others, being so marshalled, but why should the wives' arms be excluded from the private carriages, plate, &c. as is usually the case ? The Knights of the different orders bear the arms separate, the wife not being supposed entitled to the absolute decorations of the order, and a Bishop surely, if distinction be necessary, might do the same nay, I think, ought to do so. I cannot pretend to say, what title, or what sort of pre-eminence I should recommend, as proper to a Bishop's lady, but that they should not only not participate in, but be absolutely and studiously excluded from the honors of their husbands, under the present circumstances of our reformed Church, is, I think, worse than a mere oversight ; it either makes a Bishop a bigamist, or seems to revive the justly-exploded system of Coticubinism and to the prejudice of whom ? possibly some of the most virtuous and respectable of their sex. It is true, and I am sorry for it, that neither Bishops nor Judges can entail any greatness, or Commonly speaking, confer large fortunes on their children, and therefore the lower the rank of their wives and widows and families^ the bet- 232 BISHOPS. ter for themselves ; but sentimentally this makes the case worse. How hard is it, that the wives, widows, and children of persons who have risen to the head of their professions, should derive no consequence from the elevation of the heads of their families. Bishops and Judges move in a high sphere, and during their lives, their wives and children must do the same. It is cruel that they should be left to sink suddenly, or rather lose so abruptly, their stay and support in so- ciety, by the death of the very persons, who had perhaps first raised them into any importance at all. If it were the same with all professions, it would be different ; but how many Physicians, Surgeons, (not to mention Generals and Admirals) have left to their children, the goodly inherit- ance not only of wealth, but of permanent honors. In the Church no such things are to be expected; in the Law there are seldom more than two or three chances of the latter ; and in respect to wealth, it is certainly not to be generally ac- quired on the Bench. By the ancient discipline, Bishops might be married once, but a second marriage amounted to a disqualification. When celibacy began to be insisted on in the Greek and Roman Churches, BISHOPS. 233 Bishops were expected not to live with their wives, but it does not seem to have been positively en- joined them till the Council of Trullo in 692, when it became established in the former. In the Latin Church it only obtained by slow de- grees. In writers of the middle age, we meet with the term Episcopa, Bishopess. By an an- cient Canon of the Council of Tours, a Bishop who had no Bishopess, was forbid to have any crowd of women after him. But I must be allowed to ask, how could the Bishop help it, if the ladies chose to follow him ? No doubt Bishops made good husbands, and therefore when they had no Bishopess, can we wonder that the ladies should follow him about, in hopes of becoming such? I say this, because the Latin of the Canon seems to leave it doubtful whether the prohibition lay on the Bishop or the women. " Episcopum Epis- copam non habentem, nulla sequatur Turba mulierum." The credit of the Bishops seems a little at stake in the decision of this question. No persons suffer more, from liberties taken with their names or titles than Bishops do. " Falling in," says the Spectator, " the other 234 BISHOPS. day at a victualling-house near the House of Peers, I heard the maid come down and tell the landlady, at the bar, that my Lord Bishop swore he would throw her out of window if she did not bring up more mild beer." Every body knows that by this was meant my Lord Bishop's servant. But in such cases, the grave character of the master tells greatly to his disadvantage. A " double mug of purl," for my Lord Duke, can never sound so bad, as a Bishop's swearing and threatening to throw a woman out of win- dow. It is an old story, but very appropriate, that is told of Garrick. A man of the name of Stone, who was employed by him to get recruits for the under parts of the Drama, had hired a fellow to perform the character of the Bishop of Winchester in Shakspeare's Play of Henry the Eighth ; but on the night of performance, sent a note to Garrick in these words : " Sir, the Bi- shop of Winchester is getting drunk at the Bear, and swears he will not play to-night. I am, &c." To this Garrick immediately replied, " Stone, the Bishop of Winchester may go to the Devil. I do not know a greater rascal except yourself. D. G." Another time Stone wrote to him, " Sir, BISHOPS. 235 I axed Mr. Lacey for my two guineas for the last Bishop, and he said a farthing would be too much for him." N. B. Since writing the above, the following paragraph has appeared in the public papers. " A report is afloat that the courtesy of the Crown will be graciously extended to the con- sorts of Bishops, so as to permit them to parti- cipate in the temporal dignities of their spiritual Lords ; anS thus will be removed from among the anomalies of some of our institutions, one which gives an awkward irregularity to an ele- vated portion of our social order ; for it is a great incongruity not to suffer the spouses of Spiritual Peers to repose upon the same proud pedestal of rank which sustains the Ladies of Lay Nobi- lity." Dublin Correspondent. LAW. THERE is a wider gap between the Lord Chan- cellor and Judges than between the Archbishops and Bishops, even when the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench is a Peer. Nor can I well account for the Masters in Chancery being placed where they are in most of our orders of Prece- dence ; in some even before Viscounts' younger sons, Barons' younger sons, and Baronets. In others below Knights. It would be very difficult to reconcile these two appointments, or indeed to say, which were the most correct. The Mas- ters in Chancery sometimes indeed sit upon the same Bench with the Chancellor, but are surely not so much connected with him, or so nearly allied to him, as the puisne Judges to the Chiefs of the other Courts. Formerly they were in Holy Orders, and regular Clerici ; but I would not venture on this account to call them Clerks to the Chancellor, though I think them rather Assistants than regular Assessors. In cases of great weight and difficulty, the Lord Chancellor LAW. 237 may call upon some of the Judges of the other Courts to aid him with their advice, which seems to place the Masters of Chancery below the rank of Assessors in the Chancery Court. The Master of the Rolls, as head of the order, and who has a Court of his own, may very reasonably, as a Prtefectus or Primicerios, be allowed the rank assigned him, between the two Chief Justices. There is no need to displace the Masters in Chan- cery, let their allotted rank be what it may ; but I could not help pointing out the discrepan- cies to which I have alluded, especially as Sir William Blackstone, connected as he was with Westminster Hall, seems not to have admitted them at all into his order of Precedence. Where- ever they are introduced, however, they clearly stand above Serjeants at Law, and yet the latter in virtue of their Coif, are generally put into the King's Commission, as regular substitutes of the Judges, in case of sickness or disability, on the circuits. There is something anomalous even in the very title of a Serjeant at Law. Ser- viens ad Legem, which bespeaks rather an Ap- prentice than a Proficient ; a Subaltern rather than a Prafectw ; though the Coif is certainly a dis- tinction of great legal eminence. 238 LAW. Many of my readers perhaps may not know what I mean by the Coif. It is a round piece of lawn or cambric, covered all but the edge with black silk, taffety, (or I know not what) but supposed to represent the corona clericalis, in- tended to hide the Tonsuram Clericalem, or shaven pate of those in holy orders, which the Mem- bers of the Law in former times genet-ally were. It is now placed upon the hinder parts of the wigs of all Serjeants and Judges ; which reminds me of a very ridiculous mistake of a worthy Ser- jeant, not long deceased, and for the truth of which I can vouch. He was left executor to oile of his brethren, a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, whose will, by accident, was thrown into Chancery, upon what they call an amicable suit, that is, merely to obtain for the executors, the solemn sanction of that Court, .to do what they ought to have been hanged for not doing without that sanction, upon their own discretion. It was moreover something that could have been per- fectly and effectually accomplished in the com- pass of ten minutes, without the interposition of the Chancellor, but which it literally took seven years to adjust (very imperfectly) under his Lord- ship's jurisdiction. But I am wandering, from LAW. 239 the point, as though I had got into Chancery myself. In the will which the worthy Serjeant had to administer, the testator had bequeathed to his eldest son, a very ancient piece of plate, called in " olden times," a quaff, being a shallow sort of silver cup with two solid handles. The words of the will were, " I leave to my son Nicodemus," (or whatever it might be,) " my old Quaff" At the end of the Chancery suit, when the family of the deceased was finally to be put in possession of what had descended to them severally and particularly, it was discovered that the worthy Serjeant had for the space of seven years, fully believed, that his friend the Judge, had by a special bequest, left to his eldest son, not his " old" silver " quaff," but the old black patch he wore upon his wig, videlicet Coif. This is literally fact. The Coif, however, is very honorable ; a Judge must be entitled to it, by taking the degree of Serjeant before he sits on the Bench. I have observed that the term Ser- viens ad Legem, is scarcely compatible with the rank assigned to Serjeants, and Spelman seems to be somewhat of the same opinion. For though he admits that the degree of Serjeant is the highest in the common Law, as a Doctor is in 240 LAW. the civil Law, yet says he, " a Doctor of Law is superior to a Serjeant, inasmuch as the very name of a Doctor is Magisterial, but that of a Serjeant is only Ministerial." How this is settled amongst the learned gentlemen themselves, I cannot pre- tend to say, but I should trust by some civil Law at all events, capable of preserving them from any disagreeable rencontres. If Spelman how- ever be right, it may account for the Masters of Chancery ranking above Serjeants, Master and Doctor being anciently the same. The title of Serjeant is evidently open to the same objection, as many others which have been mentioned, that of being too common. There are not only Serjeants at Law, but Serjeants at Arms, Serjeants of the Mace, Serjeants of the King's Household, and Serjeants in the Army. If we take the two extremes, how widely they stand apart in our orders of Precedence ; however, the " cedant arma Toga," is a main security to the Serjeant Counter, as he is called, or Serjeant of the Coif. There are two very considerable Law Officers, who are never noticed in any of our orders of Precedence ; I mean his Majesty's Attorney and Solicitor General. They have marked precedence LAW, 241 I know in Westminster Hall, but what rank they hold in society at large, I do not know ; it seems to be an oversight. An ancestor of my own appears to have had an extraordinary Law- rank assigned to him, which being recorded on his Tomb in the very words of the Grant, I need not scruple to mention. He had the spe- cial permission of his Majesty King George the Second, to take place between the Attorney and Solicitor General, or rather " immediately after the Attorney General," and that for life. I believe the history of it was this : He was rather a favorite of the King's, and while he held the office of Solicitor General, with a prospect of higher advancement, was compelled by ill health to resign the Solicitor Generalship. His Majesty not willing that he should sink, placed him above his own successor, till the opportunity oc- curred upon his recovery, of appointing him to a much higher situation in the profession. Having stumbled upon Attornies and Solicitors, I would wish to have leave to ask, what is the real history of the change that has so recently taken place, (in country places particularly,) in regard to these two titles and designations ? We have now in reality no Country Attornies; they VOL. I. R fi42 4 AW. are aft Solicitors. I know that he terms are in a great degree convertible; that an Attorney fifray itt certain circumstances act as a-'Solicitdr, find a Solicitor (I believe I am correct) as an Attorney ; but there seems to be a little pride in the recent substitution of one title for another, which I do not quite comprehend. However, I shall not interfere with it; under either title they have a great deal to do, and seem constantly employed; their operations being something in the way of " Tobacco hie;" rriiiOin <*7/ oil : girfj fcfiw Ji lo > ?(! ytfl avjilj*^ " -Tobacco hie, Tobacco We ; If you be well 'twill make you sick.. k> iv : . J?oifo3 10 9'JfflU Tobacco hie, Tobacco hie ; 'Twill make you well if yon be sick." V ". ,*\t ' O i They generally seem to be occupied either in helping those put of a scrape who have fallen into one ; or bringing those who were in no scrape at all, gradually into one, to which there shall fee no end, till they themselves choose that it should be so ; which is, commonly speaking, when the contents of the client's exhausted purs6 begin to be as questionable, as the case in which he had been involuntarily involved. I do not mean to speak rudely of a very industrious, IBH LAW. 243 telligent/ and much confined class of persons ' but it is really irielancholy to think, that so many of the community should be reduced, (as is the case at present) to the absolute necessity oP pur* Chasing their assistance an assistance eked out in little parcels of advice, never extending an inch beyond that precise point, where a new dif* ficulty is likely to arise, calculated " to bring" (to- use a vulgar but very applicable expression) '-' more grist to the mill" If this be not the exact state of things, I wish to be corrected by^tne public and I give this notice, for fear 1 should be wrong, at the hazard of incurring the charge f what, I above all things detest, calumny, and slander. Indeed I cannot see any reason; at the refy worst, for subjecting me to such imputa* tions ; for the reserve of "the class of Lawyers alluded to, bespeaks grazf ingenuity ; nor do I see why they should be bound to sell their mew ehandise wholesale to retail customers '; but still; I may surely have leave to suggest the hint; to those who have to buy- law, " Caveat EMPTOR.'* Let them at least remember that the Very anagram of LAWYERS, is, SLY WARE ! ! The Country Attorney, however, in calling himself Solicitor, seems to forget his origin. I R 2 244 LAW. believe the following to be a pretty true account of his office and profession. " In the time of our Saxon ancestors, the freemen in every shire met twice a year, under the presidency of the Shire-Reeve or Sheriff, and this meeting was called the Sheriff's Torn. By degrees the free- men declined giving their personal attendance, and a freeman who did attend, carried with him the proxies of such of his friends as could not appear. He who actually went to the Sheriffs Torn, was said, according to the old Saxon, to go AT THE TORN, and hence came the word Attorney, which signified one that went to the TORN for others, carrying with him a power to act or vote for those who employed him." I do not conceive that the Attorney has any right to call himself a Solicitor, but where he has busi- ness in a Court of Equity. If he choose to act more upon the principles of equity than of law, let him be Solicitor by all means, but not other- wise for law and equity are very different things ; neither of them very good, as overwhelmed with forms and technicalities, but upon the whole, equity surely the best ; if it were but for the name of the thing. Mr. Crabbe in his Poem of the Borough, Letter LAW. 245 VI., has so admirably expressed in verse, what I have just ventured to say in prose, that I can- not forbear reminding my readers of it. He be- gins with a sort of allusion to the disgrace into which the title of Attorney seems to have fallen. " Then let my Numbers flow discreetly on, Warn'd by the fate of luckless Coddrington *, Lest some Attorney (pardon me the name!) Should wound a poor SolicitorioT Fame." He next notices, as / have also done, the great increase of business in this line of late years. " One Man of Lena in George the Second's reign, Was all our frugal Fathers would maintain ; He too was kept for Form,?; a man of Peace, To frame a Contract, or to draw a Lease : He had a Clerk, with whom he us'd to write AH the day long, with whom he drank at night ; Spare was his Visage, moderate his Bill, And He so kind, men doubted of his skill. Who thinks of this, with some amazement sees, For one so poor, three flourishing at ease ; Nay, one in splendour! see that mansion tall, That lofty door, that Jar-resounding Hall ; Well-furnish'd rooms, plate shining on the board, Gay liveried lads, and cellar proudly stor'd : Then toy, how comes it that such fortunes crown These sons of strife, these terrors of the town t" * See the Account of Coddrington, in " The Mirrour for Ma- gistrate." 34$ LAW: lines, describing the mode of what I have called above, " getting into a law scrape," are delightful! " Lo ! that small office! there th' incautious Guest, Goes blindfold in, and that maintains the rest ; There in his web, th' observant Spider lies, And peers about, for fat intruding Flies; Doubtful at first, he hears the distant hum, And feels iliemfutt'ring as they nearer come ; They buz and blink, and doubtfully they tread On the strong Bird-lime of the utmost thread ; But when they're once entangled by the Gin, With what an eager clasp he draws them in ; Nor shall they 'scape, 'till after long delay, And all that sweetens life, is drawn away !" I cite Mr. Crabbe the more willingly because he is not one of those morose Satirists, who would condemn a whole profession for the faults of some amongst them. He knew of exceptions, and so may I. ,*9a icsmcxium " Yet I repeat, there are, who nobly strive To keep the sense of moral worth alive; Men who would starve, ere meanly deign to live ( On. what Deception and Chican'ry give." It is odd enough that Guitlim, in his blazonry of a Cobweb, quotes the following lines *& " Laws > like Spider's. web. s, are wrought, Great Flies escape, and small are caught." LAW. And he adds, ft by the spider we may under- stand a painfull and industrious person, a man carefull of his private estate, and of -good fore- sight in repairing of small decayes, and prevent- ing of wracks." ?' i '*' Ji - r; fH ttsyttt * m inl ' '>-' '/I The Insignia of the two Inns of Court, the Inner and the Middle Temple, are 'pretty well known to be the Lamb, and the Winged Horse. Upon which, very long ago, the following lines were written, and chalked up upon otte of the public gates. - As by the Templar's holds you go, , , , , The Horse and Lamb display'*!, ' In emblematic figures shew, ^ j . . . The merits of their Trade. -7i'sJ[ C2U" ' i 7 * OlIJ -">[) OH ?>; JE/'l.m i 1'J ii i-'-'c *fhat Clients may infer from thence How ju.st is their profession, The LAMB sets forth their INNOCENCE, The HORSE their EXPEDITION. Oh happy Britons ! happy Isle ! Let foreign Nations say, -liil ii'-t ,,.. W-> ,i/UU UOA Where yon get/tu(ice withont^uue, And Low without delay! lOc. iJS-kOloJ' -;.ff" This is clearly the truth of mattes, as every body must allow ; though some wicked w& chose to indite the following answer I -8;*rH. - > ^i* -' Jjit 248 LAW. Deluded men, these holds t'oregn. Nor trust such canning elves ; These artful emblems tend to shew, Their CLIENTS, not THEMSELVES. Tis all a Trick ; these all are shams By which they mean to cheat yon ; .But have a care, for you're the LAMBS, And they the Wolves that eat you. Nor let the thoughts of " no delay," To these their Courts misguide yon ; 'Tis you're the shewy horse, and they The fockies that will ride you Abominable scandal ! but it is my duty to be impartial, and report on both sides, leaving every thing to make its own impression. There is no doubt but that the English Law- yers, informer times, lay under the stigma of great tricking and prevarication (how happy ought we to think ourselves that those times are quite past and gone!!) In the curious Letters of the Abbe Le Blanc, written to his friend the Abbe Olivet, on the English and French na- tions, he makes the following remarks. " The art of Oratory in the different Courts of Justice in Westminster Hall, is confined, much more frequently than in ours, to captious sub- tleties and chicanery.' i!tivl $ " Chicanery, which went into England with the Romans and their laws, must have found as happy a disposition in the minds of the English, as in those of the Normans themselves. Its power is as firmly established in this country (England) as ever it was in its native one. Eng- land is doubtless its greatest and most glorious conquest. The King has twenty thousand troops to make the laws obeyed Chicanery has fifty thousand Lawyers to support its own power and perpetuate its reign. The barristers at Westmin- ster Hall dispute more about the letter of the law, than the justice of their cause. As villains fre- quently get off by the most frivolous and childish subtleties, the Lawyers apply themselves daily, to invent new ones ; this is the continual study of the great number of Inns of Court at London, which properly speaking are only seminaries of chicanery. That you may be able to judge yourself of the subterfuges by which chicanery can screen a criminal from the severity of justice, here is what I have found in the trial of the famous Christopher Layer, who was tried for High Treason before the House of Lords in 1722. " As to the second exception, (said the 250 LAW. Counsel for the Prisoner) that, in relation -to Christopherus, writ with an e, whereas it should be Christophorus with an o, we submit it to your Lordships, whether that be not expressly within the defects mentioned in the Act of Parliament, mis-writing, mis-spelling, false and improper La- tin ? nay, whether it be not subject to censure, under each of these four heads ? " My Lords, it was impossible to bring all my authorities upon this point along with me ; but / have here in Court several of the best Dic- tionaries and Lexicons, which shew the true ' v_ word to be Christophorus ; and I believe the gentlemen on the other side can't produce one instance in any authentic book, either Greek or Latin, but it is always spelt with an o, and not v" '' with an e. It is Christophorus, from -st^opai, the pr&teritum medium of the Greek verb Qep u ; and the rules of etymology and formation of Greek verbals evince that it must be so, and cannot be otherwise : and by all the Latin Dictionaries the Latin word for Christopher is Christophorus." So much in regard to misnomers in law. But what immediately follows is too good a specimen of the same sort of pleading to be passed by. " My Lords, I hqpe your Lordships will par- LAW. 261 don : rne ; here is the life of a man concerned ! and as I would not willingly offer any thing to your Lordships that in the like cases has been over-ruled ; so neither would I omit any thing that may be material for the prisoner, whose defence the Court has intrusted us with. There- 1 fore I will go on to the other objections that we think to be improper Latin. 'Compassavit ; ima^ ginatusfuit, et intendebat ! These are the words ? I don't know whether this Latin will go dowrt in Westminster Hall, but I am satisfied it would not in Westminster School." tf Here is the et intendebat ; et, a conjunction copulative between verbs in several tenses ! here is compassavit, the preterperfect tense ; imaginatus fuit, the preterperfect tense ; and intendebat, the preterimpeffect tense ! Why should not the last verb have been put into the preterperfect tense; according to the rules of classical Latin, as well as the two former ? Therefore, my Lords, &c'.' &c. &c. &c." The Abbe Le Blanc's reflections on the fore- going report, are these : io* rj g no j. ^- g as if ^ e Counsellor had said, the 'prisoner whose defence is committed to me, may be a traitor to his country,' but his'prose* 252 LAW. cutors are guilty of blunders contrary to the rules of the Latin grammar ; for which reason, I de- mand that he be set at liberty, though his crime, enormous as it is, go unpunished. Is Moliere's Araminta, who turns Martina out of doors, be- cause the poor country girl did not speak good French, more ridiculous than the Counsellor, who would screen a criminal, because his ac- cusers happen to speak bad Latin ?" I know that this, strange as it appears, has nevertheless a very laudable object, which is, to give an innocent person more means to defend himself, and at all events to spare the lives of men as much as possible. But laws are made to punish those who disturb its order ; the subtilty of Lawyers encourages them. I like the account given by Mercier, of what he calls the " Jurisdiction Comulaire" in his Tableau de Paris. It is to the following effect. " Elle expedie plus d'affaires litigieuses en un seuljour que le Parlement (the French Westmin- ster Hall) en un mois. Les parties plaident elles- memes. Les vaines subtilites sont bannies de ce tribunal, ainsi que la lougue formalite des procedures ordinaires. Sans cette jurisdiction, dont I'utilit6 egale l'6tendue, il n'y auroit ni LAW. 253 ordre ni surete dans le commerce, les autres tribunaux etant des mois entiers a rendre tine sen- tence ou un arret, et la chicane pouvant reculer pendant plusieurs annees un jugement definitif. " Le Chaos monstrueux de notre jurisprudence et de notre procedure augmente de jour en jour, et tout semble livre a la merci du plus auda- cieux ou du plus adroit. II n'y a que la jurisdic- tion consulaire qui conserve dans ses travaux le front de la justice." How far the above may be applicable to our own Courts of Law, I shall not pretend to say ; but of the quick dispatch of business in our Courts of Equity, we have lately received testimony of singular authority, if the newspapers have re- ported the matter correctly. I allude to the Lord Chancellor's remark not many weeks ago, on an application made to him to hear excep- tions to the Master's report, " with convenient speed." " Convenierd speed," said his Lordship, " means after all the other cases which claim consideration are disposed of. I have known an instance where money was ordered to be paid into Court ' FORTHWITH,' and that meant, in fact, at the end of nineteen years /" St. James's Chronicle, Nov. 23, 1822. I/AW* As to the reflections cast upon bur Law Prac- titioners on the score of 'Chicanery, it should be recollected, that there are some cases which can scarcely be argued without chicanery ; such as the well known case of Stradling versus Stiles, in the reports of Scriblerus, an admirable banter^ but not impossible. I remember one of a like na- ture ,which I believe was the production of George Alexander Stevens, a famous Lecturer on Heads, and which he denominated, " Bullum versus 'Boatum" A man had fastened his boat to the bank of a meadow, in which cattle were at pas- ture, with a whisp of hay. A bull got into the boat, eat up the hay, and away they both floated together ; and if they were not lost, received each of them great damage. The owner of the boat prosecuted the owner of the bull, because the bull had run away with his boat, while the owner of the bull commenced an action against the owner of the boat, because the latter had run away with his bull. Chicanery in pleading is better however than the base and unmanly custom of brow-beating a witness. I was present myself once when the following scene took place. It was an action of. assault. A witness had sworn that he saw the 1 LAW*. plaintiff very roughly handled, and that he had the bridge of his nose broken. The counsel for the de- fendant observing the peculiar features of the witness, (who was also an old man,) desired him to shew to the Court what part he meant when he asserted that the plaintiff had received an injury on the bridge of his nose. The hand of the witness shook a little .through age, and a little more through nervousness, and he had besides, I verily think, the narrowest and sharpest edged nose that ever was seen, so that when he tried to rest his finger upon the bridge of it, it inva- riably slipped aside. " Sir, says the defendant's counsel, that is the side of the nose, not the bridge put your finger again to the place you mean there, Sir, you cannot deny that your finger is on the side of your nose ; I fear you are a perjured man. You have solemnly sworn be- fore my Lord and the jury, that the injury re- ceived by the plaintiff was on the bridge of his nose ; but when you come to point out the part, it seems evidently to have been the side, not the bridge of the nose. Your testimony cannot be admitted." Fortunately the Judge (not however so soon as I wished) thought proper to take the witness under his protection, or perhaps for the 256 LAW. sake of displaying his wit, the pert barrister might have brought the poor old man's sharp nose to be exposed to the public through the hole of a pillory. Sometimes these attacks are very ably par- ried ; of which I recollect two good instances, that merit to be preserved. The celebrated Mr. Dunning having once to examine an unfortunate gentleman, who by unexpected losses, had suf- fered imprisonment for his debts in the King's Bench, ventured to ask him in a tone bordering (as the gentleman thought) upon contempt, why he went to prison ? " To avoid," said the wit- ness very gravely, " the well-known impertinence of Dunning." This by the bye would have done for a pun upon names. The other instance is more modern, and per- haps known to most of my readers ; still it is worth preserving, especially as I have it not in my power (even if I would) to say where or when it happened. A barrister had been puz- zling and perplexing a lady for some time, with questions, when in one of her replies she hap- pened to use the word hum-bug. Madam, says he, you must not talk unintelligibly ; what is the jury or the Court to understand by the word i,AW. hum-bug? I must desire you will explain your- self. The lady hesitated. I must insist, ma- dam, said the barrister, before you proceed fur- ther with your evidence, that you state plainly and openly what you understand by a hum-bug. Why then, Sir, says the lady, I know not how to exemplify my meaning better, than by saying, that if I were to meet any persons, who being at present strangers to you, should say that they expected soon to meet you in some particular company, and I were to tell them to prepare to see a remarkably handsome, pleasing looking man, that would be a hum-bug. The Abbe Le Blanc speaks of England as the most glorious conquest of Chicanery. It is fit therefore that we should remember whence this Conquestor came to us evidently from France, by the Abbe's own account see him cited above. And indeed France seems to have always been desperately fond of Lawyers ; as an eminent Law- yer of our own country has very lately shewn. Even in the reign of Tiberius, the city of Autun had schools of eloquence and law, which con- tained, we are told, no less than 60,000 students. In 297, they were under the direction of the ora- tor Eumenius, with a salary of 600,000 sesterces, VOL. i. s 268 LAW. or about 2800 of our money. The schools of Toulouse, Bourdeaux, , Marseilles, Lyons, Treves, and Besanfon, were also celebrated. When the Francs possessed themselves of Gaul, they re- spected the profession of an Avocat ; but in those turbulent times, it was as much a military as a civil advoqation. The profession of Avocat maintained its qonsideration till the division of the Francic? Empire amongst the sons of Char- lemagne in 814. It appeared to advantage again under St. Louis. There was a regular Forensic order of Knighthood; but of this, more here- after. In 1790, the French National Assembly at- tempted to new organise the order of Avocats, retaining the old members ; but the latter being hurt, and fearful of losing their credit by being associated with the new Avocats, desired to have their order abolished, which accordingly took place 1795, after having subsisted 427 years, as. Mr. Butler, whom I am citing, observes, " in great and universal credit." So much for the order itself ; and perhaps it may be fair and just. But to repel the charge of chicanery being more prevalent in England than in the Abbe Le Blanc's own country, I LAW. 259 would observe that the entertaining author of the Tableau de Paris, compares the French Avo- cat with Lucian's Lawyer, and to mark his dis- position to practise chicanery as he pleases, thus describes him. " I/incertitude des loix 1'a rendu Pyrrhonien sur Tissue de tous les proems, et il entreprend tous ceux qui se presentent. Celui qui 1'aborde le premier* Determine la serie de ses raisonnemens, et commande a son eloquence."- Quaere, is not the very term chicanery purely French ? : pni(rnj{TjhT .ss ; it! Xtxin o* bcw . ,*9WJS.v " ' VI :ioi F BARONETS^ &c. ( IF Masters of Chancery have been occasionally- placed too high, in our orders of Precedence, there are some otheifc who I think are placed too fflw> oj, in fact=, hot so. distinguished as they might and should be ; as for instance, the Sons of the younger Sons of Dukes and Marquesses. I can see no harm, as their fathers are titular Lords, and unquestionably of the first orders of Nobility, in bestowing on the Sons the title of " Honorable" at the least. It is often thought that they must be so, and probably the title is often given them, but it does not actually belong to them according to the present state of things. They are merely Esquires ; and so indeed their Fathers are ; but as courtesy has given titles to the latter, it could be no great trespass, surely, against any rules of heraldry, to give an inferior title to their sons. The younger sons of Dukes take place of Viscounts, and the younger sons of Marquesses, of Bishops and Barons ; BARONETS. why then should not their sons, having such noble blood in their veins, be by courtesy at leastj styled Honorable ? In some instances I have been told, the King has allowed it. I have also heard that his late Majesty, on application made to him, settled a question about rank between the daughters of Baronets and grand- daughters of Earls, in favor of the latter. Baro* nets and their families may well be satisfied with the rank assigned to them. They are compara- tively modern, a sort of intruded, interpolated order ; not more so however than some others, though more recent. Marquesses have been made over Earls ; Dukes over Marquesses, and Viscounts over Barons* And there is an odd instance upon record of a degraded Marquess, who upon the Parliament petitioning to have his title restored, opposed it himself, alleging that it was , a new title^ utterly unknown to our ancestors. This Marquess however, it should be observed, had been an Earl (of Somerset) before he became .Marquess. It happened in the time of Henry IV. But Baronets seem to have been more strangely inserted, than any of the foregoing. It is pretty well known, that it was merely to iaise money for the behoof of the Province of 262 BARONETi. Ulster in Ireland. L am not afraid to say this, in the very fate of the descendants of those who were first created ; for in regard to those Baro- nets themselves, it is proved by every accom- panying circumstance, that they must have been from the very first persons of great wealth and importance. They were required to be men of good quality, style of living, and reputation ; and descended at least from a paternal Grandfather, who bore arms. " Familid, patrimonio, censu, et morum probitate spectatos/' - Money, however, was the great object, as the Earl of Salisbury intimated, when he had to overcome some scru- ples on the part of the King, who was fearful of offending the gentry ; " Tush, Sir ! the Money will do you good, and the Honor will do them very little." Even the dignity of Peerage was set to sale ; 20,000 pounds would purchase an Earldom; 10,000 the title of Viscount, and 5000 that of Baron. The new order of Baronets was however a hardship' upon simple Knights, and must have seemed thejiKiore strange, as at the very moment they were thus put above -the latter, the King bound himself (I think very unaccountably) never to supersede the new order itself ; originally indeed they iwere not to exceed BARONETS. 263 two hundred, and to decrease as they died off. But this regulation, though rendered binding upon King James and his successors, has long been departed from, Had it been observed, it is evident that in time Knights might have reco 1 vered their old place ; though even to this day there are several most respectable families of the first creation remaining. It is singular enough that though Baronets were so obviously placed above an ancient order, there is a clause in the original decree concern- ing them to the following effect. " His princely meaning was only to grace and advance this new dignity of his Majesty's creation, but not there- withal any ways to wrong tacitly and obscurely a third party, such as the younger sons of Vis- counts and Barons are, &c." But there is still a clause more remarkable in the instructions given to the Commissioners, and which certainly be- speaks no very great tenderness for third parties. " Yet because this is a dignity, which shall be hereditary, wherein divers circumstances are more considerable; than such a mark as is but temporary, (that is to say of being now a Knightf &c.) our pleasure is, you shall not be so pre- cise in placing those that receive this dignity f 264 BARONETS. but that an Esquire of great antiquity and extra- ordinary living, may be ranked in this choice before some Knights, &c." It has been said indeed, that the order of Ba- ronets only took the place of the ancient Valua- tors or Vavasors, a sort of dependent Baron or lesser Thane. To be plain and intelligible, " a free Tenant who had sac, soc, 'toll, tern and Infan- gethe of" not holding in capite of the crown, but under some liege Lo e rd. But if this were the case with Vavasors, surely our Baronets were from the first more independent. Some represent the Valvasor to have been a sort of Sub-Porter to the Marquess. As the latter had the guard of the frontiers, those who received fees from them, and were attendant upon them, were called Val- vasors, as keeping watch ad Valvas Regni, at the gates and entrances of the kingdom. The title of Baronet is evidently (by increase, as is often the case) a diminutive of Baro, Baron, and therefore, of course, with some loss of weight, if that word, as antiquarians pretend, is derived from the Greek /3a/>oj. " Vir gravis, vel ^magnae authoritatis." For by this rule, the Ba- ronettus, Baronulus or Barunculus, (for all these names have been given him, see Calepine's Die- BARONETS. tionary) must be somewhat lighter ; minus gravis, vel minoris authoritatis ; heavy enough however still to outweigh a simple Knight ; yet in a very slight degree, for it will be seen presently that the weight of only one Garter would turn the ba- lance. Etymologists have I know another method of tracing the origin of the word Baron, by which it expresses either equality or freedom, being by means of & free pronunciation and a change of b's for p's, exactly the same as the pares homines of the Latins, the parhommes of the French, the Parhuomini of the Italians, or by German Cir- cumlocution, Free-heren or Free Lords. According to the original Institution indeed, all Baronets must f necessity be, men of fa- mily, figure, and fortune, and perhaps these three F. F. F.'s would not always be found in those whom his Majesty might think proper to advance to the honor of Knighthood. They would seem to have been considered by King James I. as merely hereditary Knights, since those who were not previously Knights were to be made such if they chose it. That is, if they were not con- tented with being little Barons, they had the option of becoming great Knights, or to speak BARONETS. in terms truly heraldic, if they chose to be rather the top step of Nobilitas minor, than the bottom step of Nobilitas major, they were welcome to be so. They had the option, in short, of doing much as the Prior of Jerusalem is said to have done in Selden's Table-talk, who chose to call himself " primm Baro Anglia" the first English Baron. For instead of standing last of the Spi- ritual Barons, which was his place, he went to the top of the Temporal Barons, making himself, as Selden says, a kind of Otter, a Knight half spiritual and half temporal. Baronets however should be cautious how they condescend to be- come Peers. The ancestor of one of our English Viscounts, as a Baronet, was one of the most popular and respectable country gentlemen of his day ; but being induced to accept a Peerage, he became so suddenly convinced of the different situation in which it placed him, with regard to the public, that he chose to record his error in his heraldic achievements. For this I have been credibly informed was the real history of the Motto, " Ubi lapsus quid fed." The ladies of Baronets have been styled Ba- ronettesses, and not improperly, to give them rank above Knights' ladies^ but I apprehend many BARONETS. 267 of them may be unaware that they have as Ba- ronettesses, a higher rank than their own hus* bands ; for they take place of all Knights' ladies ; whereas Baronets have not precedency of Knights of the Garter, or of Knights Bannerets created by the King himself in person, under his banner, displayed in a royal army in open war. The same may be said of the ladies of Baronets' sons, and of the daughters of Baronets. They precede the wives of the sons and daughters of all Knights whatsoever. Guillim complains that in his time the Arms of Ulster were often improperly placed in Baro- nets' Arms. They should be borne either in a Canton or an Inescocheon, and not just where the coach-painter chooses to place them. But I believe this is better understood now-a-days. Besides the order of English Baronets, ori- ginally instituted to assist the province of Ulster in Ireland, James the First created a Scotch or- der of Nova Scotia Baronets, made for the behoof of our American settlements, who bear a cogni- zance or medal suspended to an orange-tatt?ey ribbon. What affinity the orange-tawney bears io any of the colours of the rainbbw, I am not quite certain. Bottom, the weaver, in the Mid- 268 BARONETS; summer Night's Dream, speaks of such a co- loured beard, which, from what befel Hudibras in his fray with the Skimmington, we may con- clude to be a rotten egg colour. The rank has been given, and those who bear it, are thoroughly entitled to it ; but as in the former instance it is certainly an interpolated order, so far af- fecting a third party, contrary to the expressed intentions of the King, as to put simple Knights one degree lower in the scale ; and it was ori- ginally bought with money, another blot in the escutcheon. True it is, and for the sake of all who bear these honorable titles, I wish to say it, their money, according to the terms of the Patent, was to be most creditably laid out, particularly that of the English Baronets. The entire civili- zation of the province of Ulster being the pro- fessed object, as the following words shew ; " Ut tanta Provincia, non solum sincero religionis cultu, humanitate civili, morumque probitate, verum etiain opum affluentia, atque omnium Rerum capia, quae statum Reipublicse ornare vel beare possit, magis magisque efflorescat." " That so great a pro- vince should more and more flourish, not only in the true practice of religion,, civil humanity, BARONETS. and probity of manners, but also in an affluence of riches, and abundance of all things, which contribute either to the ornament or happiness of the commonweal." The sum each new cre- ated Baronet was to contribute amounted to about 1095. As soon as the end was accomplished, the Crown, it is true, was honorable enough to remit or excuse this payment, by giving receipts without exacting the specified sum. It is cu- rious however to read the Patent, and see what very solemn stipulations have been broken, and how exceedingly the letter of it has been vio- lated ; especially in regard to the number of Baronets, which after being in the plainest and most express terms limited to two hundred, and those from time to time to decrease, and be re- duced to a lesser number, amounted in James's own reign to 204, and in that of his immediate successor to 448, in the face of these following very strong terms, with which the Patent con- cludes. " And these our Letters Patent shall in all things, and by all things, be firm, valid, good, sufficient, and effectual in Law, as well against us, our heirs, and successors, as against all others whatsoever, according to the true intention of 27flt BARONETS, the same, as well in all courts, as in any other place whatsoever,, notwithstanding any law, cus- tom, prescription, use, ordination, constitution whatsoever, heretofore set forth, had, used, or- dained, or provided, and notwithstanding any other thing, cause, or matter whatsoever. Now what I quarrel with is, not so much the deviation from such a rule, as the too rigid and peremptory establishment of it. Was James the First more entitled to innovate, or exercise his prerogative, than any of his successors? His present Majesty's prerogative is surely quite as extensive as that of James the First, and twenty times more respectable, from being better known, better ascertained and understood ; and yet by the wording of the above Patent, it would ap- pear that George IV., as an heir and successor of James, stood committed to do neither more or less, than was stipulated to be done in the year 1611. It would almost appear as if the Baronets of the first creation might still claim to have that Patent enforced ; whereas, in my humble opinion, George JV. i$ as free to act as his An- cestors. So if some of our monied men were to offer to redeem so much of the National Debt as might set free a few millions of the interest upon BARONETS. 271 it, to the relief of our necessities, on condition of being made something between a Baron and a Baronet, I see not why it should not be done. I grudge not any thing that was done for the Pro- vince of Ulster, in the time of King James ; but who would not consent to have many more than 200 created of any new order, to lessen the Na- tional Debt : however, Baronets alone might do, perhaps, since I see it has been lately calculated, that from the year 1800 to 1820, they have been actually created at the rate of a Baronet a month / Before I conclude what I have to say about Baronets, I should observe, that their eldest sons have a right to be knighted, and all Baronets in fact ought to be Knights as well as Baronets At their first creation this was pretty generally attended to, though now fallen into disuse ; but if the heir of a Baronet and his wife chose to call themselves Sir, and Lady, I know not who but the King could prevent it; for in the original Patent, without a word being said of their being first knighted (though it might be understood, according to the custom of those days, and was afterwards made optional in the heirs) the terms are, " We will also and ordain (for us, our heirs, and successors,) that before the name of the said 272 BARONETS. A. B. and his heirs male aforesaid, in English speech shall be placed this addition, SIR ; and that the wives of the said A. B. and his heirs male aforesaid, shall have, use, and enjoy the appel- lation of Lady, Madam, and Dame, respectively, according to the custom of speaking." The fact evidently is, that it was in the King's contem- plation, that every Baronet not being a Knight, should be made such as soon as possible ; and that their heirs should be knighted on attaining the age of twenty-one, upon notifying the event to the proper officers of the Court. But this is not clearly expressed in the original Patent. Ba- ronets probably were more particular about being knighted themselves, as it seems to have been common in former times to call them either Knights or Baronets : thus, in the Spectator, the joint-work of so many polite and courtly writers, Sir Roger de Coverley is constantly called the Knight, though at first expressly introduced to the reader as a Baronet. & (, .Oi. ':R ;f!OJ i\ yfiffi ll . KNIGHTS. l^'Al ; Ejil0 < I HAVE had frequent occasion to speak of this title, than which I think none have been more strangely dealt with. Since it was superseded by the order of Baronets, it has incurred a kind of contumely, that is certainly extremely injurious to its proper character. It has been held cheaper by the public at large, and I fear also by the Sovereign himself. How often do we hear the remark, when a Sir or a Lady are men- tioned, he is only a Knight, or she is only a Knight's Lady ? nay, it may be well if the Lady do not suffer in her reputation, for her husband's title not being hereditary, like the Baronets, he is by law and heraldry, called and accounted a Knight Bachelor! Now, might we not ask, what are the wives and children of a Bachelor ? This then seems a title not of honor but of slan- der, and should, I think, be altered. How low has the Knight's title descended, by the conde- scension of the Sovereign on certain courtly oc- VOL. I. T 274 KNIGHTS. casions ; as royal progresses, addresses, &c. &c. It may indeed be a chivalrous way of his Majes- ty's paying his addresses, and the Ladies may be benefited by it, but it degrades the honor : and yet it is perhaps, without' any exception, the most distinguished and honorable title a man can bear ; it is the very title of which even Kings and Emperors'are proud* and always have been. In point of antiquity^ perhaps, the title of Alderman or EarldormanJ if any, might dispute the prio- rity, but it would still not have the precedence in honour and importance. Only a Knight! I question if this would ever have been said, if King James the First had not inserted the order of Baronets above it. I question whether the title would ever have been conferred upon certain persons who have borne it since, had not the dis- tinction between simple and hereditary Knight- hood, been thus created. I do not mean to be rude towards any who do bear it, I am only sorry that circumstances appear to have occurred that have very accidentally brought one of the old- est and most honorable titles in existence, into some disrepute ; particularly amongst ourselves. I have already observed that some of our Judges have been known to decline the title ; generally 275 they call themselves rather by their official titles, that they may not, I suppose, be taken for only Knights ; but I do not see why they should da so ; for many military Knights call themselves by their title of Knighthood, who rank abovd Kfiights, as born of noble families. The Duke of Wellington had the rank of an EarPs son, when he first became Sir Arthur Wellesley, that is, before he was raised to the order of the Bath he took place of Knights of, the Garter. The Judges should know, that Knighthood belongs to them rather as a military than a civil order ; ^among 1 our Gothic or Anglo-Saxon ancestors, the civil and military power being generally in the same hands. " The Sword and the Gown," says a learned writer upon the subject, "were 'not reck-r oned incompatible, in those simpler, perhaps? though not less honest ages of the world ; before war became a science, wherein superior skill and conduct frequently triumphed over: strength and courage ; and taw, an art which was to be learn* ed distinct from the rules of natural equity/' The office of the Princes (or Kings as the Romans sometimes affected to call them) was to Judge the nations in time of Peace, and to lead its troops in the time of battle. There was no dis- T2 276 KNIGHTS. tinction in short between their Judges and their Generah. Every man was born a soldier; and though things are very different now-a-days, yet our Judges are the proper representatives of the King, whose business it is, according to the learned Fortescue, " pugnare bella populi sui, et eos rectisime Judicare." In their civil capacity, the Judges indeed were formerly termed " Graves," as they are to this day styled " reverend." Once, indeed, the sword appertained to the Judges in a still ruder manner ; when they were literally the executioners of their own sentences, as among the Hebrews (1 Sam. xv. 33. Exodus xxxii. 26, &c.) and the German Druids. " It is beautiful to observe," says a celebrated writer, " how the minutest circumstances of an- cient customs are corrected and softened by the light and humanity of modern manners." I cannot help observing, however, that Hudi- bras seems to have had a very just idea of the connection between his military and magisterial Knighthood, when he so spiritedly tells Talgol the Butcher, .f'iJOnVtfa ' Not all the force that makes thee proud, Shall save or help thee to evade The hand of Justice, or this blade, KNIGHTS. 277 Which I her sword-bearer do carry For civil deed and military." c. a Knighthood is the dignity of all others that should not be spoken of in terms of slight and contumely, for it not only exceeds in antiquity some of our very highest orders of nobility, but was originally conferred with such parade and ceremony by Kings and Queens, as to betoken the highest eminence and consideration ; Kings themselves, indeed, received it from the Clergy, .as low down as the Norman times, William Rufus being knighted by the Archbishop of Canter- bury ; but in those days ordinary persons must have been excluded, the three following qualifi- cations being indispensably necessary to all who. received the order Merit, Birth , and -Estate. They were to be, at the least, gentlemen of three paternal descents, bearing Coat Armour. As I have in a former Section shewn, that in the opi- nion of heralds, Adam was the first Nobleman, I shall beg -leave here to shew who, in the estima- tion of the same wise personages, was the first Knight. It was, according to the celebrated Sir John Feme, no less a man than Olibion, the Son of Asteriel, of the line ofJaphet, Noah's Son for, 278 KNIGHTS. says Sir John (I think I am right), before he went to battle, his Father made him a garland of seve- ral precious stones (in token of chivalry), with which he gave him his blessing ; and then with Japhet's faulchion, which Tubal made before the flood, (Olibion, kneeling) smote lightly nine times on his right shoulder, charging him to keep the nine Virtues of Chivalry, as follows : . uoi-i; I. You shall hold with the sacrifice of the Great God of Heaven. II. You shall honour your Father and Mother. III. Be merciful to all people. IV. Do no harm to the poor. V. Not turn your back on an enemy. VI. Keep your promise to friend or foe. VII. Keep hospitality, especially to strangers. VIII. Uphold the maiden's right. IX. Not see the wid,ow wronged. O " It is true, indeed, that in the old Gothic or Saxon, the term Knight appears to have implied Servant, but then it meant the servant of a King; and so did the word Thane, one of the oldest titles of Northern Nobility. Bede expressly uses it for " Minister Regis." That no Thane felt ,egrade4 r by being in this sense a Servant, or KNIGHTS. "Minister Regis" we may well conjecture, from, the following titles assigned to different Thane* in Domesday Book. Accipitrarius. Arbalistarius, Artifex. Aurifaber. tfijr Balistarius. Cajnerarius. Coquus. Dapifer. Elemosinarius. Forestianus, Hostiarius. Latinarius. Legatus. , Loremannus. Mareschallus. Piscator. Portarius. Thesaurarius. Tonsorator. Venator. All these were Servientes Regis; though ofteii of the rank of Tlianes; even Cooks, Falconers, Sewers, .Barbers, &c. : indeed the greater Thanes had si- 280 -KNIGHTS. milar officers and attendants, but the King's ser- vants being of his immediate household, were ge- nerally persons of estate and consequence ; while the very meanest situation about the Court seems to have entitled the occupier to a high degree of eminence ; in the language of the times, they were all accounted " most noble Wites !" The path of honour seems to have been open to all ; for we read that a Thral or Slave might become a Thane or a Ceorl, a Chorister a Priest, and a Scribe a Bishop. Cantor Sacerdos, Scriba Episcopus. The following translation of a most ancient writing, taken out of the old Saxon laws, is very curious : " It was sometime in the English laws, that the people and laws were in reputation, and then were the wisest of the people worthy of worship, each in his degree, Eorle and Chorle, Theyn and Under-Theyn : and if a Chorle so thrived, that he had fully five hides of his oivn land, a Church and a kitchen, a bell- house, and a gate, a seat and a several office in the King's Hall; then was he thenceforth theTheyn's right-worthy. And if a Theyn so thrived that he served the King, and on his message or journey rode in his household, if he then had a Theyn that him followed, who in the King's Expedition KNIGHTS. 281 five hides had, and in the King's Palace his Lord served, and thrice with his errand had gone to the King ; he might afterward with his fore-oath, his Lord's part play at any need. And if a Theyn so thrived that he became an Earl, then was he thenceforth an Earl's right-worthy. And if a Merchant so thrived, that he pass'd thrice over the wide sea of his own craft, he was thence- forth the Theyn's right-worthy. And if a Scholar so thrived through learning, that he had degrees and served Christ, he was thenceforth of dignity and peace so much worthy as thereto belonged, unless he forfeited ; so that he the use of his de- gree ne might." The term Thane is affirmed by antiquarians to have been very different from the Latin servus ; he was not a slave, but zfree servant of high con- dition. He was a servant in such a sense as our Prince of Wales during the life of his Father, whose motto, " / serve," Ich Dien, or Thien, is judged to be of the very same origin and signifi- cation. Among our northern ancestors, there was no greater honor than to be in any office attendant on the Prince ; nay, though they paid very dear for the distinction, at times, it being accounted 282 KNIGHTS. disgraceful for any of these Ministri or Comites, servants or companions, to survive their chief in battle, or to let him go alone into captivity. When Chonodomarius, King of the Allmans, was taken prisoner by the Romans, two hundred of his attendants, and three of his chief est friends, gave themselves up to be bound with him. It was indeed the custom amongst many ancient nations, so absolutely to devote themselves to some Prince or Patron, as on no occasion whatsoever to consent to survive them. Nay, among the Scythians, many of the Servientes Regis, or King's Household, were generally bu- ried alive with the deceased Sovereign. Hero- dotus' account of the funeral of the Scythian Kings, contains some curious instances of this nature. They buried, he tells us, all the King's wives, his Great Chamberlain, Master of the Horse, Chancellor, Secretary, &c. &c. and even on the anniversary of the funeral they sacrificed about half a hundred more, exiTviSeiuToiTuv of the very best, merely in commemoration of their great loss ! But to return to Knights. The order of Knighthood seems originally to have been entirely martial, as Selden argues KNIGHTS. from the title of a dubbed Knight in German, Hitter geschlagen, or Knight of the Spur. Eques auralus from his gilt spurs. Hitter signifying miles, a soldier, which plainly proves it to be a military rank, and geschlagen stricken, percwsus. For Knighthood was formerly, (that is as far back at least as the time of Charlemagne, if not of Olibion, already mentioned,) conferred by a blow, or indeed what we vulgarly call a box on the ear, Colophus. Afterwards, (that is, if the story of Olibion be not true) instead of the ear t they struck the shoulder; as it is described in Hudibras, speaking of the Hero himself, as a " mirror of Knighthood ;" " That never bow'd his stubborn knee To any thing but Chivalry ; Nor put up blow, but that which laid Right Worshipful on shoulder-Wade.'' The shoulder was stricken by the Prince with a drawn sword. Thus in Shakspeare, the Duke of Norfolk accepting Bolingbroke's challenge, and taking up his gauntlet, says, " I take it up, and by this sword 1 swear, Which gently laid my Knighthood on my skouldtr, I'll answer thee in any fair degree, Or Chivalrout design of Trial." 284 .KNIGHTS. It is a curious anecdote, told by Sir Kenelm Digby, that when King James I. who had an an- tipathy to a sword, dubbed him Knight, had not the Duke of Buckingham guided his hand aright, in lieu of touching his shoulder, he would certainly have run the point of it into his eye. King James's antipathy to a sword is supposed to have commenced before he was born; being the effect of the fright the pregnant Queen his mother received from the murder of Rizzio (or rather Riccio) in her presence. What happened, or had liked to have happened to Sir Kenelm Digby, the historian of the Fortunes of Nigel has told us, occurred also to that worthy serv- ing-man, Richies Moniplies, when he obtained from the same King James his well merited ho- nors. So is truth ingeniously mingled with fic- tion in those extraordinary works. A Knight is always said to be dubbed, not created ; but it means the same thing with refer- ence to the ceremony described by Hudibras, " Was I for this entitl'd SIR, And girt with trusty sword and spar .'" For dub in English and douber in French are said both to be derived from the Saxon dubban KNIGHTS. 285 to gird, or if this will not do, dub in Saxon sig- nifies also a blow, which carries us very fairly back to the most ancient ceremony of all, the " Cuff on the neck or ear, and the thwack on the shoulders," "with which, according to the most correct ceremonial of the order of Knighthood, the renowned DOM Quixote was saluted by the Castellano, Constable or Innkeeper, who con- ferred that honor upon him, at the commence- ment of his mad pranks and perigrinations ! Hu- dibras has treated the subject most learnedly. /t P1 " Th' old Romans freedom did bestow, Our Princes Worship, by a Blow ; King Pyrrhus cur'd his splenetic And testy Courtiers with a Kick. The Negus, when some mighty Lord Or Potentate's to be restor'd, And pardon'd for some great offence, With which he's willing to dispense, First has him laid upon his belly, Then beaten back and side t' a jelly. That done, he rises, humbly bows, And gives thanks for the princely blows." In the first line, he probably alludes to the Vindicta, virgula or rod, which was laid upon the head of the manumitted slave, as we read in Livy, L. ii. c. 5. Pyrrhus's virtues lay, (where 286 KNIGHTS. do you think?) in his right great toe! " Pollicte in dextro pede tactu lienosis medebatur," as Plu- tarch tells us. Negus was a King of Mthiopia, and the incident, alluded to by Hudibras is re- lated at, length in Le Blanc's Travels : only Hu- dibras has scandalised his ./Ethiopian Majesty King Negus, in his lines. It was not his Nobi- lity, but merely the lower order of his people, whom, he, thus used. It was his Highness the* Prince of Melinda Vho treated his Nobles after this manner ; however, there was not much dif- ference, for King Negus did certainly cudgel his culprit Nobles, but it was with his own hands. Artaxerxes did much better. He had his Nobles stripped, and only chastised their garments. Their cloaths were whipped instead of them- selves. From the Fortunes of Nigel, just referred to, and which must so recently have passed through every body's hands> we are also re- minded of what was absolutely the custom in the education of Princes, the whipping them by proxy. The oddest fancy I ever heard of in regard to the order of Knighthood, was that of knighting the Saints. of the Roman Calender, female as well as male. In the time of the. Rebellion, none KNIGHTS. 287 were allowed to be Saints but the godly abettors of the reformation in Church and State. The Popish Saints were of course all to be e/wsainted, and this piece of low spite was carried so far, that the Churches were deprived of the honor of having such sanctified Patrons. Saint Marga- ret's became Margaret's ; Saint Clement's, Cle- ment's ; Saint Martin's, Martin's ; Saint George's, Georges'. But even this would not do ; they were once made to undergo the following curious piece of mockery; one Mr. Penry, a thorough disciplinarian, author of the book called Martin Mar-Prelate, chose to knight them ; Sir Paul, Sir Peter, Sir Margaret, Sir Mary, Sir Martin, &c. &c. &c. See Bishop Couper's Preface to his Admonition to the People of England, and Grey's Hudibras, Part III. Canto ii. How far this might be considered as an original de- vice of Mr. Penry, I know not, since the French once used to combine the two titles, by applying the term Monsieur, which is only my Sir f to people who lived many ages before them ; so that they made no scruple of saying Monsieur St. Augustine. Monsieur St. Ambrose ; and the vul- gar are reported still to say Monsieur St. Paul, Monsieur St. James, &c. &c. See Chambers's KNIGHTS. Cyclopaedia. What would the Quakers say to this?'. ,i Our title of Knight, which we derive from the Saxons, is almost peculiar to ourselves. In other nations, they have commonly had a name given them, derived from horses, because in ancient times they served in the wars on horseback. "The Romans called them Equites; the Italians, Cavallieri; the French, Chevaliers; the Germans, Renters ; the Spaniards, Cavalleros ; the Welch, Marchog, &c. : and all with respect to riding' 9 Bracton mentions Had. Cnightes, that is, serving Horsemen, who held lands upon condition they should furnish their lord with horses. If our Knights, however, should not be suffi- ciently equestrian, surely his Majesty might have an Equestrian order of his own, formed out of the English Damasippi, (Juvenal, Sat. VIII,) who in [the present day, display such extraordinary skill in driving their fours-in-hand, and twos-at- length, and who generally appear so exceedingly proud of their attainments, that it is quite a pity they should not be formed into a distinct order, and have titles given to them, expressive of their singular merits and great worth. If they should be able to find no Saint in the Christian KNIGHTS: 289 Calendar, to select as Patroness of their new order, the heathen Goddess Hippona may well serve their purpose. ' Interea dam lanatas, torvumqne J uvencum More Nome caedit Jovis ante altaria, Juvat HIPPONAM, et facies olida adpratepia pictas." Or perhaps they may find a Deity amongst themselves ; for Sunt quos CCRRICULO pulverem Collegisse Juvat ; metaqae t'ervidls E vitata rotis, palmaqae Nobilis Terrarum Dominos evehit ad DEOS! I now proceed to consider the degraded state of this ancient order. It is far from being gene- rally degraded. Sovereign Princes are still proud of the honor, nor is there one in Europe that is not probably a Knight of many orders. The com- plaint we have to make is, that in many instances it has been rendered too common, or conferred upon persons under circumstances not con- sistent with its original design and character. " This title," says Clark in his History of Knighthood, " which was anciently of high esteem, is now conferred indiscriminately upon Gownsmen, Physicians, Burghers, and Artists, VOL. 1. U 290 KNIGHTS. whereby the original institution is perverted, and is of less reputation than it hath been." Without the slightest intention to speak disre- spectfully of any persons in trade or business, do we not all remember cases in which it has been bestowed on Brewers, Silversmiths > Attor- nies, Apothecaries, Upholsterers, Hosiers, Tailors, &c. &c. ? I do by no means wish to see such persons placed out of the reach of honors, or deprived of the smiles and favors even of royalty. King Alfred undoubtedly shewed his wisdom in honoring Merchants. But I would find, or invent for them, titles more appropriate. What can such persons have to do with swords and gilt spurs, and martial titles? According to the strict and ancient rules of Chivalry, no man was entitled to the rank and degree of Knighthood, until he had been in actual battle, and taken a prisoner with his own hand. Are they the persons we should look up to, to fulfil the Knight's oath, " to maintain and defend all ladies, gentlewo- men, widows, and orphans ; and to shun no ad- venture of their person in the wars in which they may be engaged ?" In this free and happy country, I rejoice to think that every man of business, every honest and industrious trades- KNIGHTS. 291 man, may look to the possibility of his receiving kingly notice and kingly honors ; but why not have civic honors specially appropriated to such purposes, instead of running the risk of seeing a Knight behind a counter, or my Lady getting up small linen. Sancho Panza indeed was per- suaded that he was fit to be made a Duke ; " for once in my life time," says he, " I was beadle of a Corporation, and the gown became me so well, that every body said, I had the pre- sence of a Warden : then what shall I be when I am clothed in a ducal robe, all glittering with pearls like a foreign Count ; upon my consci- ence I believe persons will come an hundred leagues on purpose to see me." Perhaps indeed the King might as well make Dukes of such worthy citizens as Knights, for our Citizens and Burghers have commonly a very portly presence, and might as well become the one as the other ; besides there would be something less incon- gruous in it, for why should the Sovereign be expected to confer that very title on persons at the bottom of our orders of Precedence, which he actually takes to himself as an honor, standing at the very top ? If Tailors in particular must be Knights, they ought clearly to be Knights Tem- u 2 292 KNIGHTS. plars, as of the family of Hudibras's Ralpho, from " whose great ancestor," (Dido's heir,) as it is recorded, (in never-dying verse,) " Descended cross-legged Knights, Fam'd for tbeir faith," &c. &c. I believe Sir William Walworth, Lord Mayor of London, who was knighted by Richard II. for slaying Wat Tyler, was the first tradesman or citizen who received this honor. But it seems to have been in danger of suffering de- gradation so long ago as in Henry the Third's reign, when whoever had the yearly revenue of fifteen pounds in land, was compelled to re- ceive the dignity ; so that the title, as writers upon the subject observe, was become rather a burthen than an honor. In the reign of Henry VIII. Serjeants at Law were first knighted, which probably induced them to suppose they had na- turally that rank, and were unwilling to go below Knights. For in the second year of James I. anno 1604, when that King made 300 Knights at once, a curious discourse was written in the form of a dialogue, or " familiar Conferance be- tween a Knightes eldest sonne and a studient in the lawes of the realm, concerning the prehe- KNIGHTS. "293 minency of the ordre of Knighthode before the degre of a Sargeant at Lawe." I would however observe, that the French Avocat, Barrister, or Counsellor, according to Bartoli, the oracle of the Law in the XlVth Century, at the end of the Xth year of successful professional exertion, became ipso facto a Knight. This seems not to have been known to the authors of the foregoing dialogue. There was in short in that kingdom a regular forensic order of Knighthood ; and I be- lieve in Italy and Germany also. These Laicyers took an oath to use the advantages of Knight- hood only for the purposes of religion, of the Church, and the holy Christian faith, in the war- fare of the science to which they were devoted. It does not appear that they wore their Eques- trian Costume in the Courts, but from some hints thrown out by Beaumanoir, they are supposed to have been attended to the Courts by Esquires. But it is impossible to degrade the title of Knight, otherwise than by bestowing it unwor- thily. " No honorable person," says an eminent writer, " will deny, but that Knighthood hath great excellency amongst all other titles of ho- nor ; for otherwise so many great Princes would 294 KNIGHTS. never have taken that honor in their, own persons as an augmentation of their monarchical ex- cellencies; " as witness Lewis XL who was knighted at his Coronation by Philip Duke of Burgundy ; who if made a Duke, Marquess, Earl, &c. it would have detracted from him, all these titles being in himself." There was always something particular in re- gard to the dignity of Knighthood. If an Esquire was made a Knight, he lost the name of an Esquire ; but if a Knight was made a Duke, Earl, or Baron, he still held and retained the name and title of Knight during his life, and was so styled in all writs. By 24 Henry VIII. nobody under the degree of a Knight could wear a Collar of S.S.'s. AU the chief Judges wear such Collars ; they must of course therefore be Knights. But it is some- what remarkable that, according to the old bal- lad of the Tanner of Tamworth and King Edward IV. the latter gave a Collar of S. S. to an Esquire, to the alarm of the Esquire himself. " A Collar, a Collar, our King 'gan say, Quoth the Tanner it will breed sorrow ; For after a Collar cometh a halter, I trow I shall be hang'd to-morrow ! KNIGHTS; "- Be not afraid, Tanner, said the King, . , I tell thee so mought I thee, _ , . > * - -- Lo here I make thee the best Esqv'tre, That is in the North Countrle!" )' . n i.nrjj -iif'-'l : is j'.Ja^'i'* o*fo wi jto*3cf/n x There is no rank, there are no distinctions, more wise and politic than our orders of Knight- hood, and their decorations, Ribbons, Stars, Me- dals, &c. &c. They cost the Crown nothing, the State nothing, you and I nothing, unless we should be so fortunate as to obtain them, and then I would answer for it, we should not grudge the costs. But the beauty of them is, (and herein they seem to differ from most other ob- jects of ambition) the less intrinsic value they have, the more desirable and the more honor- able they are. Give money instead, and all the glory attending the distinction is vanished and gone. Money, as Montaigne says, is the re- compence and reward of valets, couriers, dancers, singers, mountebanks, stage-players, &c. &c. Ho- nor and virtue scorn such common rewards. Their proper recompence must be altogether noble, generous, unmercenary. Its very cheap- ness constitutes its worth. Augustus Caesar we read was extremely liberal of his costly remu- nerations, but cautious to a high degree in the 296 KNIGHTS. distribution of merely honorary distinctions ; such as his crowns of laurel, oak, myrtle, vest- ments of peculiar make, the use of carriages and flambeaux in the streets at night, and particular seats in their public assemblies. Arms, titles, Sur-names, &c. are undoubtedly of the same de- scription ; but the more such honors are de- tached from all baser appendages and accom- paniments, the more truly honorable they are. " Si au prix qui doit estre simplement d'honneur, on y mesle d'autre commoditez, et de la richesse, ce meslange au lieu d'augmenter 1'estimation, la ravale et en retranche. L'ordre de Sainct Michel, qui a este si long-temps en credit parmy nous, n'avoit point de plus grande commodite que celle-la, de n'avoir communication d'aucune autre commodite. Cela faisoit, qu'autre fois il n'y avoit ny charge ny estat, quel qu'il fust, auquel la Noblesse pretendist avec tant de desir et d'affec- tion, qu'elle faisoit a 1'ordre : ny qualite qui apportast plus de respect et de grandeur : la vertu embrassant et aspirant plus volontiers a une recompense purement sienne, plutost glori- euse, qu'utile." So far Montaigne, and (though bis famous order of St. Michael fell afterwards into disrepute) nothing can be more just ; but KNIGHTS. 297 the principle has been abused. And it was ex- actly in consequence of such abuse, that the order of St. Michael came first to be instituted in the room of the order of the Star ; the honors of which had been exposed to sale, to supply the exhausted treasury of Charles Vllth, which was judged to be a sad prostitution of the order. " The King of France, says Rica to Ibben, (in the Persian Letters) is the most potent Prince in Europe : he has no gold mines like his neigh- bour the King of Spain ; but he has more wealth than him, as he raises it out of the vanity of his subjects, which is more inexhaustible than any mine. He has undertaken and maintained great wars upon no other fund than the sale of titles of honor ; and by a prodigy of human pride, his troops were paid, his places fortified, and his fleets equipped." These distinctions, of course, must be in a great degree mere matters of opinion, otherwise it would be absurd to think of offering them to sale ; but if a man can be made to fancy himself great, he is great, as far as his own feelings are concerned ; and if the King were not to offer to sell them what they desire, they would not want means to elevate themselves. In the Persian 29$ KNIGHTS. Letters just cited, Usbeck writing from Paris to Rhedi at Venice, observes, " there are in France three sorts of professions, the Church, the Sword, and the long Robe. Each has a sovereign con- tempt for the other two : a man for example, that ought to be despised only for being a/bo/, is often despised only because he is a Lawyer. Even the vilest mechanics will dispute for the excel- lency of the trade they have chosen ; each sets himself above him that is of a different profes- sion ; in proportion to the idea he has framed to himself of the superiority of his own. " All men, more or less, resemble the woman of the province of Erivan, who having received some favor from one of our Monarchs, wished a thousand times in her benedictions of him, that heaven would make him Governor of Erivan I" I have read that a French ship putting in upon the coast of Guinea, some of the crew went ashore to buy sheep. The natives carried them to the King, who was dispensing justice to his subjects under a tree ; he was on his throne, that is to say, a piece of timber, as stately as if he had sat upon that of the Great Mogul : about him stood three or four guards, armed with hedge-stakes :. an umbrella in the form of KNIGHTS. 299 a canopy skreened him from the heat of the sun. All his own ornaments, as well as those of the Queen his wife, consisted in their black hides, and some few rings. This Prince, whose vanity was greater than his poverty, asked those strangers whether he was not much talked of in France ? He fancied his name could not but be carried from one Pole to the other : and being quite the reverse of that Conqueror, of whom it is said he silenced the whole earth, this Prince fancied it could not be but the whole universe must speak of him. " When the Cham of Tar- tary has dined, a Herald proclaims, that all the Princes of the earth may go to dinner if they please ; and this Barbarian that lives upon milk, who has neither house nor home, and subsists upon nothing but robbing and cutting of throats, looks upon all the Kings of the world as his slaves, and regularly insults over them twice a day." Seneca has recorded an instance of the most ridiculous affectation of grandeur, in the person of one Senecio. I shall copy Cowley's account of him. " He would have no servants but huge massy fellows, no plate or household stuff, but thrice as big as the fashion : his extravagancy 300 KNIGHTS. came at last into such a madness, that he would not put on a pair of shoes, each of which was not big enough for both his feet ; he would eat nothing but what was great, nor touch any fruit but horse-plums and pound-pears. He kept a con- cubine that was a very giantess, and made her walk too always in Chiopins, till at last he got the name of Senecio Grandio, which Messala said was not his Cognomen but his Cognomentum." Dr. Johnson, I think, has recorded an instance of vanity, well deserving to be added to the above. It is of a Country Squire, who was so fond of displaying a quantity of plate on his sideboard, that he constantly had his silver spurs placed there. Consequence may be given by the merest trifles. There is one at present in vogue amongst ourselves, which seems likely to be carried to an almost ridiculous extent. I mean the three et c&teras, (&c. 8cc. &c.) in the directions of our let- ters, notes, 8cc. I am pretty certain that I remem- ber the time when etiquette confined it to the Ca- binet Ministers, or at the very least, to the highest Officers of State. Such personages might well have such an easy and contracted compliment paid to their numerous titles and dignities, few KNIGHTS. 301 of which could be expressed at length ; but now they are added to almost every name, and may stand for any thing or nothing. That they may stand for any thing, and therefore suit those who are at the very bottom of our orders of pre- cedence, is evident from this, that a Grocer may be et ctetera, et catera, for he is generally a Tea dealer, a vender of plums and currants, sugar, and a hundred other things. A Sadler is commonly #c. fyc. fyc. for he is also a Collar, Harness, and Whip maker. A Country Apothecary is a Sur- geon, a Dentist, and Man-midwife. Nay, the mender of kettles, fyc. fyc, fyc. meaning pots, pans and so forth, would do very well for a Tin- ker. That they may stand for nothing, I leave to those to find out, who may be in the way of observing to what odd names they are tacked, and how very general the practice is become. Stars and Ribbons may seem trifling, but they are very ornamental, and as marks of distinction by no means extravagant. They render a person conspicuous, and if rightly bestowed, do cer- tainly not exceed the bounds of royal or national remuneration. Our Four Orders of Knighthood are extremely honorable, and have nothing in them I think that can be excepted against. The 302 KNIGHTS. first order indeed, that of the Garter, by its motto, seems to challenge enquiry, and defy reproach. Every body must know the story that refers the origin of the name to a piece of gallantry ; either the Queen or the Countess of Salisbury having been supposed to have dropped one of those very useful pieces of female attire at a dance ; upon which old Camden says, with a great deal of propriety, and a most just com- pliment to the ladies, " haec vulgus perhibet, nee vilis sane haec videatur origo, cum nobilitas sub amore jacet." The true relation is considered to be this ; that Edward the Third being engaged in a war with France, for the obtaining that crown, in order to draw into England great multitudes of foreigners, with whom he might negotiate for aid and support, appointed a tournament to be holden at Windsor, in imitation of King Arthur's Round Table, at which all his illustrious guests were to be entertained ; but King Philip of France suspecting his designs, caused a like tournament to be proclaimed in his own domi- nions, which meeting with success, proved a countermine to Edward's original plan, and in- duced him to turn his thoughts from it, to the KNIGHTS. 303 institution of a new order of Knighthood ; and to signify the purity of his intentions, and retort shame on those who should put any malignant interpretation on his proceedings, he chose for his motto the words, " Honi soit qui mal y pense" which is not ill translated in the dramatic poem on the Institution, to be found in Dodsley's Col- lection, thus, n; ' iiiifl . yJt jl-ifc >.ii~>, ,\ ;.<,,; \j .v., ., " Asham'd be be who with malignant eye, So reads my purpose." if The Fellowship of the Order of the Garter, is of all others by far the most honorable, mak- ing Knights, and sometime those of the lesser Nobility not only equal to Noblemen at home, but companions to Kings themselves and Em- perors : a fellowship of all the orders of the Christian world most ancient and famous ; en- circling all titles and degrees of Nobility from the throne downwards." This is a brief account of the order, from the pen of an Herald. I have no need to go farther into its History, but merely to pick up such things as may apply to this work. And first, I am rather surprised, that the ladies of the Knights of the Garter should have relinquished so great, and I should think so or- 304 KNIGHTS. namental a distinction, as that of wearing the ensign of the order in Jewellery or enamel as a bracelet on the left arm, which Ashmole assures us w,as at first customary. Surely it would be as reasonable as the gold chain of the Lady Mayoress, and being in the form of a bracelet to the arm, might possibly divert the attention of the men from the reputed original ; it might be dropped and resumed with less confusion, and the only objection I can see to the use of such an ornament, is the hazard of mistake, from the double meaning of the term Periscelis, which signifies not only a G****r but B*******, which our English ladies never wear! Quse Graeci irepiax&w vocant, nostri Braccas dicunt, says an ancient Father of the Church. Though the order was instituted so long ago as in the year 1344, it was not till the reign of Charles the Second that the Knights were em- powered to wear the Star they use at present, embroidered on their coats. For the conveni- ence of travelling, they may wear a blue ribbon under their boot, instead of the " Golden Gar- ter," but I believe they are liable to bjine, if they have neither ribbon nor Garter on. Their Gentleman Usher has a title of a very KNIGHTS. 305 fearful sound to school-boys. What must they think of an Usher of the black ROD ? " I knew one, who in winter," says old Peachum, " would ordinarily in a cold morning, whip his boys over for no other purpose than to get himself a heat." Having had occasion to mention King Ar- thur's Round Table, which was made round to prevent all controversies about precedency, as a round Robin is calculated to screen the ring- leader of a conspiracy, it may perhaps be amus- ing if I recount some of the names of the first Knights, as a specimen of the language of the times. In the second Chapter we have, Esclabor, the disguised. Agravain, the Proud. Yvain, with the white hands. Dodinel, the Wild. Osevain with the hardy heart. Mador of the Porte. Arthur the Less. In the third Chapter, Arthur Ly Bleys, the Stammerer. Pharan the Black. Pharan the Red. Amant the Fair Jouster. Gavenor the Black. VOL. i. x 306 KNIGHTS. In the Fourth, V f , The Goodly Coward. The deformed Valiant. The Good Knight Descor. The Varlet au Cercle. Lot the Valiant. Meliadus the Spy. Lucan the Butler. In the Fifth, Brunor of the Fountain. Sibilias with the hard hands. Sivados the Thunderer. Arphaxad the Gross. The Lovely Amorous. Malios of the Thorn. Argovier the Angrie. Patrides of the Golden Circle. Mauduis the Scorner. Gringalais the Strong. In the sixth, Agrior the old Gamester. Galindes of the Hillock. Chalamor the Well-wisher. Alibel the Forsaken. Arganor the Rich* The ancient Knight of the hollow Deepes. Malaquin the Gross. KNIGHTS. 307 In the Seventh, Normain the Pilgrim. A", -Mi oJl 7 Harvin the Unwieldy. Ferandon the Poor. Random the light or nimble. The Strong always found. The lost black Knight. Divant of the Rock. The Fairy for Ladies. The Forester. The Huntsman. The Brown without Joy. Geffrey the Stout. Foyadus the Gallant. The Eighth, Roustelime of the High Mountain. Courant of the hard Rock. Armont of the Green Serpent. Ferrant of the Hill. Busterine the Great. Lydieux the Strong* Soline of the Wood. The Knight of the Seven Ways. Hescalon the Hardy. Marandon of the River. x 2 308 KNIGHTS. Abilem of the Desert. Foelix the Fortunate Searcher. Dezier the Fierce. The rules of the order were admirable. None were to be admitted, but those who made suffi- cient proofs of their valour and dexterity in arms. They were to be always well armed for horse or foot ; they were to protect and defend widows, maidens, and children,, relieve the dis- tressed, maintain the Christian faith, contribute to the Church, protect pilgrims, advance honor, and suppress vice ; to bury soldiers that wanted sepulchres, to ransom captives, deliver prisoners, and administer to the cure of wounded soldiers, hurt in the service of their country. Upon any complaint made to the King of injury or oppres- sion, one of these Knights, whom the King should appoint, was to revenge the same. If any foreign Knight came to Court, with desire to shew his prowess, some one of these Knights was to be ready in arms to answer him. If any lady, gentlewoman, or other oppressed or injured person, did present a petition declaring the same, whether the injury were done here or be- yond sea, he or she should be graciously heard, KNIGHTS. 309 and without delay one or more Knights should be sent to take revenge. Well might they bear the names given to them above, having such chivalrous exploits com- mitted to their charge, which though they may seem now to be at an end, yet let our Knights of the Garter and St. Patrick take care, for I see not how they could escape going upon such en- terprizes, if proper cases were made out ; the latter having undertaken to " be bold strongly to fight, in the just and necessary defence of those that be oppressed and needy," and the former even " to offer themselves to shed their blood," to the same ends. Among the many foreign orders that have been instituted, there was, and perhaps still is, one of a very singular nature in France, viz. the order de la Sainte Ampouille, or Holy Phial. It consists of four persons, generally of the an- cient province of Champagne, men of the first rank, family and fortune there. At the Corona" tion of the Kings of France, these four Barons or Knights are delivered to the Dean, Priors, and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of St. Remy at Rheims, as hostages for fulfilling the en- gagements entered into, by the great Officers KNIGHTS. of the Crown, to return the holy Phial in which the oil for anointing the King at the Coronation is kept. I cannot inform the reader what was to be done with these hostages in case any acci- dent befel the sacred Phial ; but it is melan- choly to think that it could not well be replaced by any thing earthly, it having been originally brought from heaven, and put into the hand of St. Remy, at the Coronation of Clovis, in the sixth century. Whether the hostages were to be dispatched to the other world to fetch another, does not appear. The order of Fools was a singular order, and what the intention of it could be, I cannot con- jecture. There certainly was however such an order in Germany, founded in 1380 by Adolphus Duke of Cleves ; the badge being the figure of a man, habited like a Fool, in a short waistcoat, a cowl of red and yellow patchwork, with mor- rice bells of gold, yellow stockings, and black shoes, holding in his hand a bowl filled with water. I have observed, that according to Ashmole, the ladies of Knights of the Golden Garter (Equites aurta Periscelidis) used formerly to wear the ensign of the order on their arms. This did KNIGHTS. 311 not make them Knights of the Garter certainly, but it was an outward distinction that probably must have been extremely becoming. Though ladies however cannot be Knights, they have not been without their distinct orders in various countries of Europe ; some of which I shall mention, in case any such associations -of our fair and virtuous countrywomen should hereafter be contemplated ; not that the foreign orders I am about to describe would be generally suitable here. In the Austrian dominions there were the fol- lowing. 1 . The ladies' order in honor of the Cross, in- stituted by the Empress Eleonora di Gonzaga, to commemorate the miraculous preservation of a golden cross, in which were inclosed some pieces of the wooden one on which Christ suffered, during a conflagration that took place at the Emperor's palace in 1668. As ladies' orders ought to have handsome badges, I shall describe the one appertaining to this order, and which looks very handsome in an engraving. It was a golden mtdal, chased and pierced. In the centre the Imperial Eagle ; over all a Cross surmounted with the letters I. H. S. 312 KNIGHTS. and a small Cross over the letter H. with this motto, Salus et Gloria. With a little jewellery intermingled, how ex- ceedingly ornamental such a badge might be made. I wonder our jewellers do not present a petition to the King, to institute some female orders. It was the same Empress, Eleonora di Gon- zago, who in 1662 instituted, 2dly, The Order of Ladies, Slaves to Virtue. What she meant by Slaves to Virtue, I cannot pretend to explain ; I thought the service of Vir- tue, like that of Religion, was " perfect Freedom ;" however it sounds pretty and interesting, and seems as if it would suit our amiable countrywo- men. The number was limited to thirty, all noble, and of the Romish religion, (which of course would not do for us) but it had an elegant badge, viz. a Golden Sun, encircled with a chaplet of laurel, enamelled green, with the motto, " Sola ubique triumphat ;" the triumphat perhaps may help to explain the term Slaves. It was worn pendent at the breast to a small chain of gold, or a plain narrow black ribbon. How elegant ! The next order would be an admirable one KNIGHTS. 313 here, if it could but promote the virtue incul- cated by its institution ; for it is called 3. The Order of Neighbourly Love ! What a blessing! and yet, alas ! But I cannot stop to gossip about it. This order was founded in 1 708, at Vienna, by the Empress Elizabeth Chris- tiana. It was not indeed confined to the ladies, but extended to both sexes, of noble families ; the number being unlimited, which is well enough in its way, but I think it should not be cohfined to Nobles ; for neighbourly love is quite as much wanting in general, amongst the gentry, the middle class, and lower orders of society ; nay, I think more wanting ; for any deficiency of this nature amongst the Nobles, is commonly made up for by the refinements of polished man- ners. The ensign of this order is described ta be a red ribbon, having attached to it, pendent on the left breast, a golden Cross of eight points, with this motto round the centre, " Amor Proximi" (and it is to be hoped Proximo too) and the middle enamelled red. The next I have to notice is a French order, instituted by Anne de Bretagne, after the death of her first husband, Charles VIII. in the year 314 KNIGHTS. 1498, for widow ladies of noble families. It was styled The Order of the Cordeliere, . Having for its ensign a Cordelier's girdle, which they placed round the escutcheons of their arms, and wore it, tied round the waist with the ends hanging down by their sides. It lasted but a short time. Another French order for ladies was The Order of the Celestial Collar of the Holy Rosary, Instituted by Queen Anne of Austria, widow of Lewis XIII. for fifty young ladies of the first families in France. The Collar of the order was composed of a blue ribbon, enriched with white, red, and maiden's-blush, (how interesting !) roses interlaced with the capital letters A. V. in cypher affixed to it, and pendent at the breast by a silk cordon, a Cross of eight points po- mettee, and in each ano-le a Fleur-de-Lis ; on * O ' the centre the image of St. Dominick, ena- melled. (Happy Saint !) Louisa of Bour-bon, wife of the Duke of Maine, in 1703 founded the KNIGHTS. 315 Order of the Bee, For women as well as men, the ensign being a medal of gold ; on one side the portrait of the Foundress, and the other a Bee, with this motto, Je suis petite, mais mes piqures sont profondes, which might have done as well for an order of Cupid. But how extremely pretty would it have been, had she instituted, for young ladies alone, an order of the Pin, with the motto, Je pique, mais y attache. In the German empire, the principal order into which ladies were admitted, is an order of a most dismal sound, viz. The Order of Death's Head! It was founded by the Duke of Wirtemburgh, in 1652 ; and revived in 1709, by Louisa Eliza- beth, widow of Philip, Duke of Saxe Mersburg, daughter of the original Founder. A Princess of the House of Wirtemburgh was always to be at the head of it, and none but women admitted into it. Its rules were of course all of a very solemn, moral cast, and its badge appropriate, which as it is the object of this book to be grave as well as gay, and to follow where the subject leads, I shall not refrain from describing. -\ 316 KNIGHTS. A Death's Head, enamelled white, surmounted with a cross pattee black; above the cross pattee another cross, composed of five large jewels, by which it hangs to a black ribbon, edged with white, and on the ribbon the words MEMENTO MORI, worn at the breast. The badge even of this gloomy sounding order is far from inelegant, considering the richness of the materials. In 1107, there was an order founded by Agnas Abbess of the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, with a title of a very extraordinary description, namely, The Order of Ladies KNIGHTS of Malta. If this be correct, surely we might have Ladies Knights of the Garter, &c. &c. KNIGHTS. 317 The badsre was the same as that of the Men, o Knights of Malta. We cannot wonder that Russia, which has had, since the commencement of the last cen- tury, some such extraordinary Empresses, should have been distinguished by female orders. The first I have to mention, is that of St. Catherine : Founded by Peter the Great, in honor of his Empress, Catherine I. by which act I think he did himself much credit, for she was certainly a most valuable wife to him, in several trying cir- cumstances, but especially on the banks of the Pruth. Men were at first admitted, but it was afterwards confined to the fair sex. The badge is a medallion, enriched with diamonds, and charged with the image of St. Catherine, pendent to a broad white ribbon, worn sashwise over the right shoulder. On the left side of the stomacher is embroidered a silver star of eight points, on the centre of which is a cross, with this, motto round it, Pour I'amour et la Jidelitc envers la patrie. There was in Spain an order founded by James the First, King of Arragon, in 1218, 318 KNIGHTS. originally for men, but extended to females in 1261. It was called, The Order of the Lady of Mercy. The object of it being to promote the redemp- tion of captives from the Moors. The following is the description of the badge, which extremely resembles the coat of arms of an English Duke. A shield per Fess red and gold, in chief a cross pattee white, in base Jour pallets red, and the shield crowned with a ducal coronet. There is, or was, in Spain, a female order of Saint Jago de Compostella, instituted in 1312. Thje badge a cross of gold enamelled crimson, edged with gold, and worn round the neck pen- dent to a broad ribbon, charged on the centre with an escallop shell white. These ladies wore a black habit. There was also a female order of Calatrava* the badge being a cross Jteury red, worn at the breast pendent to a broad ribbon. Both these orders seem to have been annexed 1 as it were to two of the most celebrated military orders in Spain ; but to obviate all reproach, I ought per- haps to observe, that the Ladies' Orders were religious ones ; as was also the last! haye to men-? KNIGHTS. 319 tion, namely, the Ladies' Order of Mercy, insti- tuted in 1261, the badge the same as that of the Order of the Lady of Mercy. I have now got to an end of these female or- ders, as far as they happen to have come within my knowledge. There may be more ; some of those I have mentioned may be extinct, or their rules and badges may have been changed : but it is not necessary to be more particular. All I have said is in the way of aid and assistance, should any snch things be ever contemplated here. We have plenty of jewellers to go to work upon the badges ; we have abundance of taste to invent and combine symbols, emblems, and devices, in all possible varieties ; we have a great num- ber of noble, elegant, and beautiful females to de- corate and distinguish ; and what is most of all, every description of female virtue abounding among us, to give name and character to as many orders as the Sovereign might choose to institute. I do not mean that they should be made Knights; be girt with the sword, and wear spurs, but I should like to see them enrolled as they might be, in such orders for instance as those of Virtue, 320 KNIGHTS. Merit, Constancy, Conjugal Fidelity, Prudence, Discretion, Fortitude, Patience, Chastity, Modesty, Frugality, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. There is, or was, according to Guillim, a re- gular Heraldic reward for Gentlewomen, of which I ought perhaps to take some notice. It was a grant of Voiders, in the form of a bow, added to the arras in the following form. The Heralds seem to have been puzzled what to make of them ; but Guillim is disposed to re- gard them as representations of looking-glasses, which were once made in a bulging form, and, says he, " might well serve for the rewards of KNIGHTS. 321 Gentlewomen> to whom such gifts are most ac- ceptable." But see the good Herald's reflection upon this. " Withal implying," says he, " that Gentlewomen so well deserving, should be mir- rors and patterns to others of their sex, wherein to behold both their duties and the due rewards of virtue. His Counsell was so very behovefull, who advised all Gentlewomen often to look on glasses ; that so, if they saw themselves beautiful!, they might be stirred up to make their minds as fair by virtue as their faces were by nature : but if deformed, they might make amends for their outward deformity, with their internal pulchritude and gracious qualities. And those that are proud jof their beauty should consider, that their own hue is as brittle as the glasse wherein they see it ; and that they carry on their shoulders nothing but a skull wrapt in skinne, which one day will be loathsome to be looked on." I know nothing for which our English ladies more deserve to be distinguished, than for their great temperance ; but the virtue is so general a one, that perhaps it could only be publicly ho- nored by some mark set on those few who do not possess it. I have been very recently re- minded of this perfection of our ladies, (and the VOL. I. Y KNIGHTS. sex in general indeed,) by perusing the following extract from Sir John Harrington's account of the reception of the King ot.Denmark, in Miss Aikin's entertaining Memoirs of the Court of James I. " In compliance with your asking, now shall you accept my poor account of rich doings. I came here (Theobalds, the seat of the Earl of Salisbury) a day or two before the Danish King came, and from the day he did come until this hour, I have been well-nigh overwhelmed with carousal and sports of all kind. The sports began each day in such manner and such sort, as had well-nigh persuaded me of Mahomet's Paradise. We had women, and indeed wine too, of such plenty as would have astonished each sober be- holder. Our feasts were magnificent, and the two royal guests did most lovingly embrace each other at table. I think the Dane has strangely wrought on our good English Nobles ; for those whom I never could get to taste good liquor, now follow the fashion, and wallow in beastly delights. The LADIES abandon their sobriety, and are seen to roll about in intoxication. One day a great feast was held, and after dinner the representation of Solomon his temple, and the coming of the Queen of Sheba was made, or I KNIGHTS. 323 may better say, was meant to have been made be- fore their Majesties, by the device of the Earl o Salisbury, and others. But, alas ! as all earthly things do fail to poor mortals in. enjoyment, so did prove our presentment hereof. The LADY who did play the Queen's part, did carry most precious gifts to both their Majesties ; but,^<)r- getting the steps arising to the canopy, overset her caskets into his Danish Majesty's lap, and fell at his feet, though I rather think it was; hi his face! Much was the hurry and confusion'} cloths and napkins were at hand to make all clean. His Majesty then got up, and would dance with the Queen of Sheba ; but he fell down and humbled himself before her, and was carried to ant inner chamber, and laid on a bed of state ; which was not a little defiled with the presents of the Queen, which had been bestowed on. his garments ; such as wine, cream, beverage, cakes, spices, and other good matters. The En- tertainment and show went forward, and most of the presenters went backward or fell down ; wine did so occupy their upper chambers. Now did appear in rich dress, FAITH, HOPE, and CHA- RITY ; Hope did essay to speak, but wine ren- dered her endeavours so feeble, that she with- 324 KNIGHTS, drew, and hoped the King would excuse her brevity : Faith was then alone, for I am certain she was not joined with good works, and left the Court in a staggering condition : Charity came to the King's feet, and seemed to cover the mul- titude of sins her sisters had committed ; in some sort she made obeisance and brought gifts, but said she would return home again, as there was D ' no gift heaven had not already bestowed upon his Majesty. She then returned to Faith and Hope, who were both sick, &c. in the lower hall. Next came VICTORY in bright armour, and by a strange medley of versification, did endeavour to make suit to the King. But Victory did not triumph long : for after much lamentable utter- ance, she was led away like a silly captive, and laid to sleep on the outer steps of the anticham- ber. Now PEACE did make entry, and strive to get foremost to the King ; but I grieve to tell how great wrath she did discover unto those of her attendants ; and much contrary to her sem- blance, most rudely made war with her olive branch, and laid on the pates of those who did oppose her coming. *$ " The great ladies go well masked, and indeed it be the only show of their modesty to conceal KNIGHTS. 325 their countenance : but alack ! they meet with such countenance to uphold their strange doings, that I marvel not at ought that happens. I do often say, but not aloud, that the Danes have again conquered the Britons ; for I see NO man or WOMAN either, that can now command himself or herself." So far Sir John Harrington. It is well for the credit of the English ladies of any time or age, that the disgrace of such intemperate doings should be thrown on foreigners ; on the Danes that is, in the above particular instance. But it is odd enough that while I am writing this, we should happen to have, not indeed a King of Denmark, but an heir presumptive to the crown of Denmark, and his Royal Consort, traversing this same kingdom of England, and partaking of en- tertainments, and receiving public honors, suit- able to their high rank and condition, and spe- cially prepared for them ; but as different from the scenes represented above, as light from darkness ! and I am very confident that were their Highnesses themselves disposed to indulge in such sort of festivities, which seems very far from being the case, (indeed quite the contrary) no ladies of rank throughout the whole kingdom 326 KNIGHTS. could be found to personate such drunken virtues, .0* even go masked into -such filthy company. Before I dismiss the subject of Knights, I cannot forbear adding, the following curious spe- cimen of the Style Heraldic, upon a question if elating to the order. < - ! - tt.:, \ . ,:,i The City of London was thrown into confu- sion once by the promiscuous manner of con- ferring the distinction of Knighthood by James the First, who though afraid of a sword, made -more Knights than any other of our monarchs. A question arose which puzzled the Heralds Office so much, that Sir William Segar, (Mr. Garter King at Arms) and Mr. Brooke {York Herald) totally differed from each other, upon the subject, nor was it finally and irrevocably settled even by those who held in commission at that time the office of Earl Marshal, and to whom it was expressly referred by the Sovereign himself. woThe question lay between the 'Aldermen Knights and 'the Knights Comfaoners ; whether for instance, when they came together, " Knight- hood did 'dignify and honor the Aldermanship, qr the Aldermanship Knighthood ?" Though Mr. Garter was much disposed to favor the Al- KNIGHTS. 327 dermanship in this case, his brother herald was decidedly of opinion that .Knighthood was so superior to the other, that " Aldermanship could give no more to Knighthood, than the light of a burning candle being held in the bright sun- shine, could add any thing to the glory thereof ;'* and he banters Mr. Garter pretty much for his ignorance of a Knight's worth. How earnest the York Herald was, we may judge from a passage towards the conclusion of his answer to, what he calls, " Mr. Garter's weak and erro- neous opinion," which in fact was, that citizens of London being Knights and Aldermen, took place of Knights Commoners ; that is, as the pe- tition of the Mayor and Aldermen to the King, more fully sets it forth, " certain Commoners, yet keeping shops, and continuing their trades in the city, on whom his Majesty had conferred, as well >as on themselves, the dignity of Knight- hood." " Sjr Richard Martin and Sir Thomas Pullison," (says Mr. York, with all the zeal of a true herald) " are ancient Knights, and have been both Lord Mayors of London, and yet now no Aldermen : Shall these now, T pray you, be called Knights Commoners, because they be freemen of London, and dwell in London? or 328 KNIGHTS. shall they lose their pre-eminence of ancient Knights by reason thereof, and give place to the now Aldermen of puisneer dubbing, being far inferior to them for good service in the Com- monwealth ? No ! GOD FORBID ! for that would be very offensive both to GOD and man !" The parties were summoned to attend the Lords Commissioners at Whitehall ; but the Knights Commoners having in two instances failed to attend, this was construed into a dere- liction of their plea, and on that account, it was adjudged that the Aldermen Knights should have precedence of the Knights Commoners, so that to all appearance Mr. Garter beat Mr. York. But I must observe, that according to Cham- berlayne, it seems to have been since determined that those who have been Lord Mayors of Lon- don, or Provosts in Scotland, shall precede all Knights, as having been the King's Lieutenants. Whether he is right or not, I am not Herald enough to say. In the remonstrance of Mr. Brooke, there is much curious matter relating to the order of Knighthood ; he shews that it is not only one of the highest, but one of the most ancient degrees of honor ; being conferred gene- rally on such as were " able by their own under- KNIGHTS. standing and experience, to lead an army against the most perilous enemy that should offer to in- vade the State." He tells us, that Pompey the Great, after all his victories, and even taking a King prisoner, did not hold himself rightly ho- nored till he was made a Knight. The meanest Knight, he says, could dignify and honor the greatest Emperors or Kings, by knighting them ; and that they possess a privilege, denied to No- bility, having in all countries a right of prece- dence, according as they are ancient Knights, while the Nobility, however ancient in their own country, have place as puisne in Foreign States. Though our Anglo-Saxon ancestors had the terms Cniht and Cnihthade amongst them, it seems difficult to say how far they may be con- sidered as analogous to our chivalrous terms of Knight and Knighthood. Whoever wishes to go farther into the subject, would do well to con- sult Mr. Turner's well known history of that ancient people ; he has a whole chapter ex* pressly to the purpose. They seem clearly how- ever to have had a military order, or degree, conferred with like ceremonies, to those in use in other countries, and in the most perfect stage of chivalry ; as the investiture with sword and 330 KNIGHTS. belt, and the observance of certain religious rites on the Eve of Consecration. Having in this section of my work, found oc- casion to hint, that the order of Knighthood has often been conferred on persons, not strictly entitled to it, I should be sorry to have it sup- posed, that I am any enemy to the democratical principle of elevating persons of real talent, to the highest stations of society, even (if need be) " de la boue," as Bonaparte would say. Morally speaking, the accident may often happen, that a person so distinguished shall not be in all re- spects what one might wish, though politically in the high and beaten road to titles, honors, personal distinctions, and personal decorations. Lewis XIII. had once to confer the order of the St. Esprit on a person whom he greatly dis- liked, though a favorite of the Cardinal de Riche- lieu, and one whb could not well be passed over. In performing the customary ceremonies, the new Knight had to plead a sort of " Nolo Epis- copari." Kneeling at the King's feet, he was obliged to say, " Non sum dignus" I am not : worthy, Sire ; to which his Majesty replied, " I know it full well, but : my Lord Cardinal will have it so." KNIGHTS- 331 James -the First, who made two hundred thirty- seven Knights in six weeks, is reported to have said to an insignificant person he was about to knight, and who held his head down, as though conscious of his own unworthiness, " hold up thy head, man, I have more need to be ashamed than thee." ij % r,: But I am still for Bonaparte's principle, ': e -fa carriere ouverte aux talens" conceiving it to be an acknowledged principle of our own constitution. Without it indeed, I see not how we could have any " novi homines," in the proper sense of those terms ; I am therefore happy and proud to have it to say, that so far from any discouragement being given to novi homines amongst ourselves, there is not one of our Jive degrees of Nobility, in which a novus homo, or the immediate succes- sor of a proper novus homo, is hot to be found. That is, a person, who however born, could never probably have been in the situation in which we find him, but in virtue of his own or predeces- sor's superior talents, merits, and ability. To take by the hand men of talents de la boue, is quite right, but I must add, that I am aristocrat enough to say, I do not like all boue, nor indeed does it seem to me to reflect much honor on the 332 KNIGHTS. French nation, that Bonaparte had to seek for talents so low in the order of society, as was actually the case : with us it is different. Our novi homines may be looked for in all ranks. Many of our novi homines are to be found in the order of Patricians. For amongst our Dukes, I regard the Duke of Wellington, though nobly born, as a novus homo : the Duke of Wellington could not have been where he is, above his eldest brother, (though a Marquess,) but for personal talents of an extraordinary nature ; talents which enabled him to contend successfully against the de la boue Mareschals and Generals of Emperor Napoleon. I highly commend the method of marking some of our novi homines in the House of Peers. It is truly Roman. It fairly announces them to be such novi homines amongst ourselves as Scipio Africanus and Scipio Asiaticus were amongst the Romans. Wellington, for instance, is a village in Somersetshire ; but whence does the Duke of Wellington derive his titles of Mar- quess of DOURO, Duke of CIUDAD RODRIGO and VITTORIA, and Prince of WATERLOO ? Whence does Lord ST. VINCENT derive the title of his Earldom ? Whence does Lord Nelson derive his second title of Viscount TRAFALGAR ? KNIGHTS. 333 Questions of the same nature might be asked concerning Viscount Duncan of CAMPERDOWN, and many others : nor need we confine ourselves to military titles, or to the Peerage. Amongst our Baronets and Knights, there are many proper novi homilies. New Peers, new Baronets, and new Knights, may be very different from new MEN ; and though I would not wish any of our NOVI HOMINES to think or act exactly like Bonaparte, yet I would freely give them leave to feel as he represents himself to have felt in the three cases of General Clarke, the Emperor Francis, and the Pope. I know that I am going to cite a work that must have very recently passed through many hands ; but if I quote what is particularly appli- cable to my own purposes from any work what- soever, I conceive that I am only placing what I adopt in a more prominent point of view, and giving to cursory remarks and stories, the con- sistency of arrangement. To General Clarke at Rome, who had busied himself, (by way no doubt of currying favor with the Emperor,) to trace the Nobility of the Bonaparte family, Na- poleon wrote, " mind your own business, I am the first of my family !" When the Emperor Francis, on the marriage of his daughter Maria KNIGHTS. Louisa, employed persons to examine Napoleon's genealogy, and thought he had found something which deserved to be made public, " I declined it," said Bonaparte, professing to be better pleased to be the son of an honest man, than the remote descendant of some little dirty tyrant of Italy ; " I am," said he, " the RODOLPH of my family." The third case is laughable, but certainly very characteristic of a true NovuS Homo. " There was formerly," (I quote Bona- parte himself, according to Mr. O'Meara) " one Buonaparte Bonaparte, who lived and died a Monk. The poor man lay quietly in his grave ; nothing was thought about him until /was on the throne of France. It was then discovered that he had been possessed of many virtues, which had never been attributed to him before, and the Pope proposed to canonise him. ' Saint Pere,' cried I, ' pour I' amour de Dieu epargnez moi le ridicule de cela.' ". .Jaicco;: 'z'jd beil ocfw .amoJf END OF VOL. I. ftwo ir;: THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. MAR1 1989 fi OLI^, i CD KET'DFEB 27 198920 3 1205 00865 7312 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 001 078 115 1