suited to the gross capacities of the mob. A splendid equipage, a luxurious table, proud liveries, and a gorgeous coronet, they can feel and worship in a cut-throat nabob, or swindling contractor, though they remember them once drudging in the meanest occupations. But the descendants of princes and kings, who have ruled kingdoms by their talents, and filled the globe with their heroism, are mean and insignificant in their eyes, if they have not themselves commanding estates, and are not placed in seats of rank and power, even though they should possess brilliant genius, and talents which have never come into active employment only because they may be too high for it! Whether any one is wise in laying any stress whatever on the distinctions of birth is a fair question. For my own part, I am inclined to think upon the whole, that it is inconsistent with a sound wisdom to regard it. The major part of those, who have exhibited the most sublime and admirable of all human qualities have been men of the lowest extraction. Such were Virgil, (if not Homer) Horace, Shakspeare, Chatterton, Burns, and Kirke White. Nor had Spenser, Milton, Cowley, Pope, or Gray, any pretensions to superior birth. On the contrary, many families which have for ages been in possession of honours, wealth, and power, have not in the long track of centuries produced one man conspicuous for abilities, or energy; or . even eminent for private virtues. To such families pedigree is a disgrace: it only furnishes a light to exhibit their defects and their baseness more conspicuously. It is not to be supposed, that every member of a numerous race will have either eminent talents, or a good disposition. Nor can those, who occasionally fall below below the standard of their alliances, be permitted to throw a cloud over a whole house. T But among those, who think birth a circumstance of high value, there is another question, and a very idle one, often agitated. It is contended by many that the honours of birth are confined to the male line! Sir. William Blackstone, who was himself a man of no eminent origin, wished to annihilate at once the distinctions of descent, by shewing how small a portion of blood of any one ancestor an individual possesses after a few generations. He applied this, if I recollect, to the case of kinship to Archbishop Chichely, who founded All Soul's College with a preference, as to fellowships, to his own relations. But if this argument be admitted, where is it to stop? What is the precise quantum of blood, at which it shall be deemed that affinity is worn out? In truth such an argument leads to the most gross absurdity, and is very unbecoming so sound a mind as Blackstone's! The male line will always necessarily have the advantage in point of credit with the world, because the name is itself a per petual indication of the descent. It may be more rationally questioned how far a low and unequal alliance. counteracts the honour:-to which, however, it may be replied, that it leaves the proportion, in right of which the distinction is claimed, unaltered. And, in truth, in this country of mixed ranks, such an objection would at once annihilate the honours of almost all the most ancient and powerful families remaining in. this country; such as Howard, Seymour, Courtnay, Talbot, Percy, Cecil, Compton, Mordaunt, Stanhope, Berkeley, Neville, Digby, Pelham, Devereux, St. John, De Spenser, De Clifford, Audley, Argyle, Hastings, Lyttelton, and Bertie. It is well known how often the regal blood of our present royal family has changed the male line-from Plantagenet to Tudor, thence to Stuart, and again to another branch of Stuart-and thence to that of the Elector Palatine, before it came to the House of Brunswic. Yet surely his Majesty does not less partake of the rights and honours derived from the blood of Hen. VII, and Elizabeth of York, than if his descent had been confined to the male line. I will now transcribe the account of the House of Suffolk. 1 "Of the House of Suffolk, conteyning the claymes of the Countesse of Darby and her children, as alsa of the children of the Earle of Hartford. "It hath appeared by the genealogie set downe before in the third chapter, and oftentymes mentioned since, how that the house of Suffolk is so called, for that the Lady Mary second daughter of King Henry the Seventh, being first married to Lewis XII. King of France, was afterwards married to Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolke, who being sent over to condole the death of the said King, got the good will to marry↑ the widow Queene, though the common fame of al men was, that the said Charles had a wife lyving at She was married Oct, 9, 1514; and King Lewis died Jan. 1, 1515, that day, and divers yeares after, as in this chapter we shal examine more in particuler. By this Charles Brandon then Duke of Suffolk, this Queene Mary of France had two daughters, first the Lady Francis, married to Syr Henry Gray Marques Dorset, and afterward in the right of his wife, Duke also of Suffolke, who was afterward be-hedded by Queene Mary,* and secondly Lady Elenor married to Syr Henry Clifford Earle of Cumberland. "The Lady Frances, elder daughter of the Queene, and of Charles Brandon, had issue by her husband the said last Duke of Suffolke; three daughters, to wit, Jane, Catherine, and Mary, which Mary the youngest was betrothed first to Arthur Lord Gray of Wilton, and after lefte by hym, she was marryed to one M. Martin Keyes of Kent, Gentleman Porter of the Queene's Housholde, and after she dyed without issue.+ "And the Lady Jane the eldest of the three sisters was married at the same tyme to the Lord Guylford Dudley, fourth sonne to Syr John Dudley Duke of Northumberland, and was proclaymed Queene after the death of King Edward, for which acte al three of them, to wit, both the father, sonne, and daughter-inlaw, were put to death soone after. "But the Lady Catherin the second daughter, was married first uppon the same day that the other two her sisters were, unto Lord Henry Herbert now Earle of Pembroke, and uppon the fal and misery of her house, she was left by him, and so she lived a sole woman for divers yeares, until in the begining of this • He was beheaded Feb. 23, 1554. The Duchess remarried Adrian Stokes, Esq. She has a monument in Westminster Abbey. Queene's dayés, she was found to be with child; which she affirmed to be by the Lord Edward Seymour Earle of Hartford, who at that tyme was in France, with Syr Nicholas Throgmorton, the Embassador, and had purpose and licence to have travailed into Italie; but being called home in haste uppon this new accident, he confessed that the child was his, and both he and the Lady affirmed that they were man and wife, but for that they could not prove it by witnesses; and for attempting such a match with one of the blood royal, without privity and license of the Prince, they were committed both of them to the Tower, where they procured meanes to meete againe afterward, and have another childe, which both children do yet live, and the elder of them is called Lord Henry Beacham, and the other Edward Seymer;* the mother of whom lived not long after, neither married the Earle againe, until of late that he married the Lady Francis Howard, sister to the Lady Sheffield; and this is all the issue of the elder daughter of Charles Brandon, by Lady Mary. Queene of France. + "The second daughter of Duke Charles, and the Queene, named L. Elenor, was married to Henry Lord Clifford, Earle of Cumberland, and had by him a daughter named Margaret, that married † Syr Henry This Edward was afterwards Lord Beauchamp; he was born about 1563, and died in August 1618, in his father's lifetime, leaving issue by Honora, second daughter of Sir Richard Rogers of Brianstone, in Dorsetshire,' 1. Edward Lord Beauchamp, who died in his grandfather's life without issue. 2. William Lord Beauchamp, afterwards Marquis of Hertford, &c. 3. Sir Francis Seymour, ancestor of Charles, the proud Duke. + This Earl of Hertford survived till April 1, 1621. |