May flourish, and that even love's sweet rose (Sore-girt with thorns) may make, as it has made,

Our happiness again. We know all this; Yet doubts o'erwhelm all knowledge-fear subdues all bliss.

Our hopes are mists

That mount up from the very earth around us, Till lost in heaven above, where heaven resists All earthly exhalations. Pain may wound us, And trials mark us with full many a scar; But time brings certainty-than hope a brighter star.

Yet sweet are hopes,

And fair their presence is, with sorrow by us ; But though their rosy hands the portals ope Of joy ideal, care can still defy us ; For we shall find, if we regard it near, The shadow of each hope to be a nameless fear.

From the Westminster Review.
PEDIGREE AND HERALDRY.

1. The Peerage and Baronetage of Great
Britain and Ireland. By JOHN BERNARD
BURKE. Colburn. London.
2. Dictionary of the Landed Gentry. By
JOHN BERNARD BURKE. Colburn. London.
3. Family Romance. By JOHN BERNARD

BURKE. Hurst and Blackett. London. 4. Birth and Worth; or, The Practical Uses of a Pedigree. [Printed for private circulation. 1852.J

5. Observations on Heraldry. By the Rev. T. HAMERTON. Churton. London. 1851. 6. The Pursuivant of Arms; or, Heraldry founded upon Facts. By J. R. PLANCHE, F. S. A. Churton. London. 1851.

Here

in a country so aristocratic in feeling as Eng-
land really is, that so little should be known
by people generally about these matters. One
has only to go down Rotten-row, and linger
by the Serpentine, on any of the pleasant
evenings which are now passing over us, to
see Heraldry, for example, in both copiousness
and detail; yet to the many of the worthy
cultivated classes, generally, what is Heraldry
as a matter of knowledge or speculation?
Little more, we fear, than what our old friend,
the elder Mr. Weller, would describe as a
something "well known to be a collection of
fabulous animals!" And Pedigree?
the general information is still thinner and
vaguer. The Briton believes in his Peerage;
the prosperous Briton hopes that his grandson
may be a peer, or his granddaughter a peer's
wife. He vaguely associates coronets with
Norman knights, and other fine objects seen
through the haze of the popular knowledge
of history; but of the actual constituency of
the body of the Peerage he knows scarcely
anything. A peer passes for a peer, as a
pound does for a pound, in this country; but
in what proportion of gold and alloy the coin
rejoices, the multitude- qui stupet in titulis
et imaginibus, as Horace saw it do of old-
is more ignorant than it is of public matters
generally.

Two preliminary remarks must commence our essay on this comprehensive and fertile subject, and must meet two difficulties, the fear of which retards our footsteps in entering upon its threshold. In the first place, then, we disclaim any intention of trenching on the province of the disciples of Dugdale of exposing mistakes in the marriages in the Baronage or affecting to settle the "Scrope and Grosvenor " controversy. In the second place, we desire to acquaint those who profess "liberal" and " enlarged riews, that we With regard to the union of the subjects are not conscious of any particular mental which combine to form our title, it is a very contraction as the result of our studies in natural one. the union of Fact and Symbol. this department, or of any indifference to any Heraldry is the symbol of gentility, historikind of " progress" whatever, in consequence cally speaking. We are well aware what of the same. Our object here, in fact, is with disputes there are about its origin, and what the literature of aristocracy and heraldry as changes have attended its history; but the a subject of genial, and human, and historic general fact about it- the historic fact which interest. We propose to look at the "dim constitutes its importance-is, that it is the emblazonings "and the purple glories of the symbol of aristocracy. England has a shield; ancient and armorial shields of Europe with a family has a shield. In each case the impartiality, though not with indifference, shield is the symbol of the bearer. The and in such a way as shall neither displease figures, quaint and rude though they be, Garter King-of-Arms nor Mr. Cobden. A visible on the pennons found stained and little of the common daylight-nay, even of the gas-light-of the nineteenth century let in upon venerable walls and solemn escutcheons can do them no harm; and, on the other hand, the mere pulling down of them, and scraping off their arugo, in the hope of being able to prove them brick-made, or potlids, is a task which can be performed by any scullery menial, and, though highly useful, is not the most honorable in the world, nor the one for which we feel any particular inclination at this moment. We prefer constructive to destructive criticism the criticism that

bloody on the field of Flodden when the fight was done -the crosses and the wild cats, the crescents and the roses these were the dearest symbols in life to the gentlemen who bore them. Two characters attached to them; they distinguished the family as well as the individual, and thus united the sentiment of home with the sentiment of honor: but, further than that, they distinguished the noble from the many, and marked out their possessor as one of the leading class of his age. To bear arms in the old days amounted to much. The times might be better or worse does not so much love to dissect the subject than other times, but, at all events, their in its decayed state, in order to show its un- work had to be done by somebody, and it sound parts, as to endeavor to know what gradually came about that coat-armor, as it the subject was in its beginning, and how was called, distinguished those who distinand for what purpose it attained its organization. Such is our general view. We may add, that we have always thought it extraordinary,

guished themselves. Its prime characteristic, then, is this, that it was the symbolic outcome of the age, a kind of ornamental blos

soming-out of the life of those violent old | Europe is tumbling into ruins (as a system days, even as a flower sprang out, according of institutions, that is)-mass falling after to the fable, from Ajax's blood. In this mass of its old fabrics, with a noise that respect, if in this only, Heraldry would al- startles everybody (a head or two getting ways have an interest among the things that broken in the confusion, also) - England have attained a strong vitality that it makes, on all proper occasions, a profession drew, in its way, upon Nature, as an object of its belief in aristocracy. England has posof human sentiment; men who depicted on sessed, in all ages, Saxon as well as Norman, their instruments of war, and made sacred a division of classes, a race set apart from the the various animals of the field, the flowers, others, to govern; and this governing class, the stars, the moon, the shells on the Syrian or rather this class whose theoretical business coast where they had warred so many ob-it is to govern, goes by a name taken from the jects, with such artistic variety- were mak-old Greek one, and is written down, when ing poetry the companion of war. In a cer- described, as comprising the best. Such, at tain way, then, poetry was represented by all events, is the nominal state of affairs. heraldry or armory. So much may be said But it is characteristic of the times, that at of the philosophy of it as a preliminary; and every step you take in attempting to put the it must be borne in mind that in a practical question to practical tests, in attempting way it constituted a stringent system of dis- even to get at the actual opinion in the world tinction. Nothing is more clear than that on the matter, you meet the most contradicbearing arms was from the first considered a tory assertions, and certainly nothing like a distinction of aristocracy, and the peculiar general faith. "Blood, sir- we must have privilege of the well-born. Hence, in grants blood!" says "the young gentleman with the conferring nobility deeds, the object of weak legs," in "David Copperfield." As Mr. which was to elevate a man into the higher Dickens has given the belief in "Blood" class the privilege was accompanied with such an imbecile representative, we a grant of the "Arms " accompanying it, guess at the turn of his opinions on the matin signum nobilitatis,”* which arms were ter. We have the contrary view in Lord depicta, and referred to in the deed, accord- John Manners' celebrated couplet: ingly. And Sir Edward Coke, in an oftenquoted passage, lays down this rule on the subject generally, "Nobiles sunt qui arma gentilicia antecessorum suorum proferre posBut, far and wide, the discord on the point sunt.' The essential characteristic, then, of spreads. We doubt, for instance, whether Heraldry, is its symbolic nature; we must anywhere, except in some inland county of always bear that in mind; and, now, looking old-fashioned habits, the proposer of au at the system, as having long since hardened honorable candidate would not be in danger itself into the fossil state, we know not how of ridicule, if he began by emphatically dewe could better illustrate it than by likening scribing him as a "man of ancient family.' it, with all its ornament, quaintness, and yet It is the fashion among journals which profess meaning, to a system of shells - mere orna-liberalism to assert boldly, that your great ments, it is true, yet still pregnant with interest, when we consider them as the offspring of the far-distant, vital, loud-sounding, feudal

66

sea.

can

Let arts and manners, laws and commerce die,
But leave us still our old nobility!

men all come from the middle class, and so on:- while, on the other hand, the success of the laborious, instructive, and interesting books of Mr. Burke, clearly shows that in But before speaking further of heraldry as other quarters of the world very different a science, and as influenced by gradual na- opinions are entertained. Many who believe tional change, we will direct our attention to in "Blood" cherish the faith secretly in the kindred subject of pedigree, or birth, or an utilitarian age persecuted fire-worshiparistocracy, whereof heraldry was in its crea- pers, who follow their belief in private. tion, and is ideally speaking still the collat- Some who have the personal pretension, proeral relative, the ornament, but also some- claim it to be of no consequence; some who thing more than the ornament- as the flush have not the pretension, pay humble homage in the cheek of the maiden is at once the to it in others. The question is in the most cause of beauty, and the sign of health. contradictory condition altogether. ChesterHow stands at present the world's account field placed at the head of his pedigree these with that question? This is a curious in- two names -"ADAM de Stanhope EVE de quiry, but it is also an important one; and, Stanhope. The ridicule was very felicitous; indeed, in a country like England, it is act- but what think you he would have said, if ually a practical one. At this hour, while you had proposed to deny the long line of intermediate Stanhopes, and to class him with the ordinary clay of the earth?

* Harl. MS., 1507, quoted by Sir James Lawrence, "On the Nobility of the British Gentry." Fraser.

Experience proves that ideas which have once been the animating ones of a nation

66

that all, strictly, of a nation's historic ideas | America, on one of the most important misdo, in one form or another, survive even sions of his age; he goes down to the counto the very dregs of its decay. In Rome, try from which his progenitors derived their for instance, this idea of birth outlived the lineage, and gives to the tracing of the line admission of plebeians to the great offices, out-of the yeomen from whom he sprang,.time lived the liberties of the state and the em- that might have added to science and to perorship of men of no family; and even politics. Happy," says Jean Paul, in his transmitted itself to the new system of Eu- autobiography, happy is the man who can rope, and inspired the patricians of Italy with trace his lineage, ancestor by ancestor, and the pride of being thought to descend from cover hoary time with a green mantle of the consular families of the great nation. youth!" A third child of the same century, We never read Tacitus without being struck and that the century of revolutions, gives teswith the vitality of the idea in his time. No timony to the depth of the same feeling; man of note appears on the splendid theatre and we find the great Jeremy Benthain of his history but we are informed, he was showing the same love, and absolutely of the great Cornelian house, or he was not meditating the purchase of certain territoof that old Sempronian family; a sutrina ries, the property of the Counts of Benaberna alumnus has a drop of satire let fall theim, from whom he may have descended.* on him as the historian passes by, and you So much for the mere strength and uniseem to see the writer's face glow, when, re-versality of the sentiment-and that not cording the degradation of some nobles of in "barbarous " times, nor among prejhis time, he adds "I do not give their udiced men. It follows only naturally names-I think it due to their ancestors." enough that the sentiment is deeper in proSo, too, in our own days, the same sentiment portion when the ancestors have been great has outlived gradual and extraordinary and renowned; and that which we should changes in every form of European life. And think honorable and interesting to ourselves, a long-descended, brilliant Chateaubriand, an we esteem and regard in others. Our readers agent in the changes of his time, pauses when he tells you of his father's family and his youthful liberalism; and admits that in his bosom there lurks a spark of the feeling which was so potent in others of his race.

must often have smiled at the curious, modest, yet firmly self-asserting way in which Gibbon speaks of the respectable Gibbons of Kent, of whom he was a descendant. Here is his opinion, as a historian, on the general question we have been opening :

obtained the sanction of time, and popular The superior prerogative of birth, when it has opinions, is the plainest and least invidious of all distinctions amongst mankind.

We sometimes think that if the vulgar old phrase " Pride of Birth," had been driven out to make room for one expressing juster ideas, and we had heard, instead, of the "Sentiment of Birth," less offence would have been given by it to the many worthy However, we are well aware that the difpeople whom the pretension has offended. Anything in the way of beauty should be ficulties of the subject just begin about this welcome in matters of opinion. To trace stage of the inquiry. That the sentiment of lineage to love and record the names and birth is profoundly fixed in the human mind, actions of those without whom we could never and that it is the tendency of nations to make have been, who moulded us and made us the children of their great men a herediwhat we are, and whom the very greatest tary order, we need not assert, for history genius of us all must know to have propagated asserts it for us. Nobody can deny the influences into his being, which must, subtly general fact; but now comes the rush of but certainly, act upon his whole conduct in hostile queries:-"Such an order as you the world-all this is implied in ancestry speak of, did it necessarily include the great did not accident and fraud raise many and the love of it, and is natural and good. menNow, if these ancestors were the great men to it, whose descendants (on the aristocratic of the day, the leaders of armies, the heads theory) assumed absurdly the superiority of a of churches, or of less rank perhaps, yet part born best class? Hus not every class, even of the governing system -men of fair repute the very lowest, produced its great men, and positions of honor, sharing in what cul- how many more would it have produced with Finally, how does time ture their age had to give them, and enjoying equal chances? respect from the world round about? Here, operate on institutions of this character, and the natural sentiment has something to stimu- does the superiority (if we admit such tolate it more; the man of such ancestry sees have ever actually existed) maintain itself, in. in each past time of his country's history aa country of mixed races and classes; little spot of hearth-fire burning through the can you depend practically, now-a-days, on. gloom, lighting up the dark space for him, any such distinctions?"

and

- and

and with a face that he knows visible by it. Life of Jean Paul (Eng. trans.); Franklin's The great liberal, Franklin, comes over from Works, Sparks' ed.; Bowring's Bentham.

new nobility, and to throw on them the blame of provoking the excesses; but where were Madame de Stael's "two hundred historic families (which she asserts to have then existed in France) - what had they been doing, what were they doing? And how had the elevated parvenus become dangerous, except by succeeding to privileges derived from the old nobility, which had become hateful and disgusting to the nostrils of mankind? No, no!-When the great earthquake tried the talents and spirits of Europe, the question of natural superiority came to a thorough test. Up from the despised plebeian classes came the revolution men and Napoleon's marshals. Give to every man his honor; give to the French nobility those whom they may justly claim; Mirabeau, Lafayette, Talleyrand, Chateaubriand, are their undoubted property, for example; but la carrière ouverte aux talens showed, at once and forever, that the worldfamous principle of ancient blood could no longer be considered tenable. It might be doubted if the principle had always been false; but the same time which had given prestige to "the Families" had proved that, at all events, it was false now. What have we in this world to argue from but facts? If a negro invented a system of metaphysics, or a Malay wrote a Macbeth, the fact would be sufficient; the whole of these races would be in a new position in the scale of the races of mankind.

Poor James Boswell, of Auchinleck (whose love of his pedigree was equal to his love of Dr. Johnson), would have answered all this with a shrug of the shoulders, and “ un gentilhomme est toujours gentilhomme." And, in his day, that was so completely the way of answering any such argument, that such shrugs cost many shoulders the head, before the century was out! A traditionary belief that the noblesse were, somehow or other, the natural born superiors of the roturiers, and Heaven only knows how far superior to the canaille, was the unquestioned creed of the upper classes in Paris; and there cannot be any doubt that the natural indignation at this haughty assumption, the honest human disgust at the idea, that such classes were the "born kings of men," was a leading impellant of the violences of the revolution. It is extremely curious to read the enumeration of the many sorts of Noblesse, to be found under the article on that word in the famous Encyclopédie. We have the Noblesse de nom et d'armes, which, we are told, is the Noblesse ancienne et immemoriale "Les gentilshommes," says the writer, "qui ont cette noblesse, s'appellent gentilshommes de nom et d'armes; ils sont considérés comme plus qualifiés que les autres.' He illustrates the natural feeling of a noblesse by a curious parallel, involving a stroke of brilliant and well-deserved satire. He states, with extreme gravity, that such feeling is very strong in Japan! "Un gentilhomme Japon- Now, we instanced France in first endeavornois ne s'allieroit pas, pour tout l'or du ing to illustrate this idea of birth, because in monde, à une femme roturière !" This no- that country the distinction between noble blesse, of course, carried to its possessors im- and "ignoble" (which word we use in its portant and odious privileges, exemption from technical sense) was more strongly marked, taxation, the great places in the church and in law and in custom, than among ourselves; the honorable orders, the officerships in the and, also, because France has done Europe army, which alone belonged to them, and the favor of bringing the question to trial at many others. These advantages made admis- her own proper cost. Of Germany it is only sion to the noblesse an object of immense needful to say, en passant, that while (soimportance. Accordingly, "lettres d'anno- cially speaking) she is perhaps the most arisblissement" were granted by the French tocratic country in Europe, she owes her great kings, for money will be recognized, let people modern renown in the world of intellect to say what they like; and for many years be- men who did not belong to her rigid and longfore the revolution, new nobles had taken descended and strict-quartering nobility. It their places among the "natural superiors "is to our own country, as like or unlike these of long-suffering mankind. The old nobles countries, that we naturally direct our main were indignant; and the kings themselves attention: how different her condition has felt, at intervals, that they must "draw the been in all the respects with which it is the line;" and they did what was gratifying to object of this article to deal, is very easily their own dignity-decreed that no indi- shown. vidual should be presented at Versailles, un- As Sir Robert Peel was wont to puzzle the less he could prove "four hundred years of financiers by asking, "What is a pound? gentility.' With what feelings, at once ludi- a favorite inquiry among our genealogists is, crous and melancholy, does one read in Cha-"What is a gentleman?" In this simple teaubriand's Memoires, that just on the eve query in the fact that there is such a diffiof the revolution, he had to send his pedigree culty lies a whole world of political imfor examination to an official before being portance. Ask a cultivated foreigner what a permitted to hunt with the king! gentilhomme is, and the reply will be decided Well, the revolution came. It is customary and unmistakable; he is a man who is noble with a certain class of writers to blame the de race. Tell an Englishman, that so-and-so