LADY CATHARINE LONG is youngest daughter of the late, and sister of the present, Earl of Orford, and wife of HENRYLAWES LONG, Esq., of Hampton Lodge, in the county of Surrey, and of East Barnet, in the county of Herts.

The house of WALPOLE may feel no less pride in the antiquity of its origin, than in the number of great men that have added such lustre to its name. The family is said to have existed in England prior to the Norman Conquest, and to have derived their appellation from WALPOL, in Norfolk, where they were enfeoffed of lands belonging to the see of Ely. In the time of King John, Henry de Walpol took part with the Barons against the Crown, and being made prisoner, was forced to purchase his deliverance at the price of one hundred pounds. Henry de Walpol was succeeded by

SIR JOHN DE WALPOL, who had been also involved in the baronial contest, and had also returned to his allegiance in the reign of Henry III. He had by Isabel, his wife, with other issue,

HENRY, his successor. Ralph, Bishop of Norwich, and subsequently of Ely. This eminent churchman died 20th March 1837. SIR JOHN DE WALPOL was succeeded by his eldest son,

SIR HENRY DE WALPOL, who married Isabel, daughter of Sir Peter Fitz Osbert, and heir to her brother Sir Roger Fitz Osbert, (which lady, after his decease, espoused Sir Walter Jernegan, of Stoneham Jernegan, ancestor of the Jerninghams, Lords Stafford, and brought the lordship of Somerley-Town, and other lands,

into that family). From this Sir Henry de Walpol, directly descended

THOMAS WALPOLE, Esq., who had a grant from William Fawkes, and others, of lands in Houghton, in the 1st Henry VII., and he had subsequently further grants of lands in the same reign. He married, first, Jane, daughter of William Cobb, Esq., of Sandringham, and dying 14th Jan. 1514, was succeeded by his eldest surviving son,

EDWARD WALPOLE, ESQ., who married Lucy, daughter of Sir Terry Robsart, and heiress of her grandfather, the celebrated Sir John Robsart, K.B. and K.G., (in consequence of the decease of her brother, Sir John Robsart, and his daughter AMIE, (the Amie Robsart of Sir Walter Scott), the wife of Sir Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, without issue), and was succeeded by his eldest son,

JOHN WALPOLE, Esq., whose great grea. grandson,

ROBERT WALPOLE, Esq., M.P., married Mary, only daughter and heiress of Sir Jeffery Burwell, Knight, of Rougham, in the county of Suffolk, and had with other issue,

ROBERT, his successor.

Horatio, a diplomatist of distinction during the administration of his brother. He was elevated to the Peerage on the 4th June, 1756, as Baron Walpole, of Walterton, in the county of Norfolk. His Lordship was father of HORATIO, second Baron Walpole, of Walterton, who succeeded his cousin, Horace, fourth Earl of Orford, in the Barony of Walpole, of Walpole.

Colonel Walpole died in 1700, and was succeeded by his eldest son,

ROBERT WALPOLE, born 26th August 1674. The history and celebrity of this statesman, are too well known to require lengthened notice here. Suffice it to say, that he was first returned to Parliament for the Borough of King's-Lynn, in 1700; that in 1705, he was Treasurer of the Navy, and Secretary-of-War; that in 1709, on the change of Ministry, he was removed from all his employments; that in 1715, on the downfal of the Tories, he rose to the premiership; and that, one short interval excepted, he held his high office during a long and eventful era until 1741. On the 6th Feb. 1742, he was elevated to the Peerage as Baron of Houghton, Viscount Walpole, and Earl of Orford. By his first wife, Catherine, daughter of John Shorter, Esq., of Bybrook, in Kent, the Earl of Orford left, with other issue, a son and successor, in 1745,

ROBERT, Second Earl. This nobleman married in 1724, Margaret, Baroness Clinton, daughter and sole heir of Samuel Rolle, Esq., of Heanton, in the county of Devon; and, dying in 1751, was succeeded by his only son,

GEORGE, third Earl, who died unmarried, 5 Dec. 1791, when the honours reverted to his uncle,

HORACE WALPOLE, fourth Earl, the celebrated novelist, poet, historian, and biographer, born in 1717. His Lordship had a seat in the House of Commons for several years, but was more distinguished in literature than in politics. He died unmarried, 2nd March 1797, when all the honours of the family expired except the Barony of Walpole, of Walpole, in the county of Norfolk, which devolved, according to the limitation, upon his first cousin,

HORATIO, second Lord Walpole, of Wolterton, born 12th June, 1723. This nobleman was created Earl of Orford 10th April 1806. He married, 12th May 1748, Rachael, third daughter of William, third Duke of Devonshire, and, dying 24th Feb. 1809, was succeeded by his eldest son,

HORATIO, Second Earl, born 24th June, 1752, who married, first, 27th July, 1781, Sophia, daughter of Charles Churchill, Esq., and grandaughter maternally of Sir Robert Walpole, K.G., first Earl of Orford, by whom he left issue,

HORATIO, present Earl of Orford.

John, a Lieut.-Col. in the Army, and Consul-General in Chili.

Charlotte.

Maria, widow of Sir William Hoste,
Baronet.
Georgiana-Mary, married 6th Feb.
1827, to the Rev. Joseph Wolff.
CATHARINE.

His Lordship wedded, secondly, 28th July 1806, Mrs. Chamberlayne, widow of the Rev. Edward Chamberlayne; but by her, who died in 1807, he had no issue. He died 15th June, 1821.

The Lady Catharine Walpole, the youngest daughter of the late Earl, was married the 25th July, 1822, to HenryLawes Long, Esq., of Hampton Lodge, in the county of Surrey, and has four daughters,

Charlotte-Caroline-Georgiana.

Catharine-Beatrice.
Emma-Sophia.
Mary-Elizabeth.

The family of Long is of Wiltshire origin, where various branches of the name * have been established for several centuries. The immediate ancestor of the Longs of Hampton Lodge, SAMUEL LONG, second son of Timothy Long, and grandson of John Long, of Netheravon, was born at Wroughton, in 1638. He accompanied the expedition under Penn and Venables, which conquered Jamaica, in 1655, and received large grants of land in that Island, where he became a Colonel of Horse, Chief Justice, Speaker of the Assembly, and one of the Council. He died in 1683, and was succeeded by his

son,

CHARLES LONG, Esq. of Longville, Jamaica, and of Hurts Hall, in Suffolk, born in 1679, who married first, in 1699, Amy, eldest daughter of Sir Nicholas Lawes, Knight, Governor of Jamaica; and secondly, in 1703, Jane, daughter and heir of Sir William Beeston, knight, and relict of Sir Thomas Modyford, Baronet. his first wife, Amy Lawes, Charles Long, of Longville, was direct ancestor of the present HENRY-LAWES LONG, Esq., of Hampton Lodge; and from his second, Jane Beeston, descends Charles, LORD FARNBOROUGH.

By

* The principal family of the name was very early seated at South Wraxall, and Draycot, and a branch at Pottern and Cheverell, which became the male ancestry of the present Walter Long, Esq., of Rowd Ashton, in Wiltshire, M.P., and of the present Walter Long, Esq., of Preshaw.

ARCH-WAGGERY is as old as the Memphian banquets. It is the proper business of skulls to grin-they can't help it; and that was the reason why the Egyptians elevated them in the centre of their tables at their merry-makings. If Mr. Bulwer should ever take it into his head to write an Egyptian romance for the purpose of shewing the domestic lives of the people, as he has done in Rome, Pompeii, and Athens, we shall see what a devil-skin, roaring, lamp-breaking, up-all-night set those same dark-featured fellows were. Then, their hieroglyphics were no more than a mask for fun. Poor Champollion thought he had discovered a clue to the mystery of the inscriptions by resolving them into historical data: ti-ri-la, ti-ri-la, Monsieur, look at them again. The angles, and patches of stars and shafts, and broken points, are like one of your French caricatures, in which heads and tails cluster in the foliage of a tree, or peep through the leaves of a violet. The antiquity of Arch-Waggery, including in its wide range the science of Practical Jokery, cannot be doubted. An archaic Essay on the subject, written with the requisite gusto and erudition, would discover an intimate sympathy between George Cruikshank and the venerable Bede, whose monkish chronicle is full of the most grotesque badinage. Some of the best stories on record are related by Bede, Giraldus Cambrensis, St. Irenæus, and Villafranca. The love of mischief prevails throughout the writings of the most profound authorities, who were never less in earnest than when they pretended to be so. What is the Gesta Romanorum, but a bundle of eccentricities? Was not Mosheim a thoroughpaced quiz; and the Jesuits, who compiled the great work upon China, a company of revellers and gasconaders?

But it belonged to the reverend ancients, to hide their drollery under a face of solemn seriousness. They acted their farces in a suit of sables. They flung their crackers into the face of the public with an air of dignity. We find, as we descend the stream of time, that this tone of gravity VOL. X.-NO. IV.-APRIL, 1837.

gradually relaxed; until at last the world, tired, as it were, of the tragedy drawl, laughed outright. Then came such spirits as Rabelais and Sterne, dry, no doubt, and sly; but so marvellously comic that, although the church was shaken to its foundations by the convulsion, people would roar as if it were an unavoidable condition of their existence. All mankind has been addicted to waggery from time immemorial; but, at some periods, it took a disputatious shape; at others, a quaint and allegorical form; occasionally, it was the blow of a truncheon on the head that knocked one's brains into a state of kaleidoscopic confusion; and, anon, it was a roguish wink and a poke in the ribs. There was Burton, full of humorous fancies that held the reader in suspense between a groan and a chuckle-Deshoulières, as brilliant as a fire-fly— Pascal, all venom and mockery-Skelton and Butler, torturers of thought and language-Molière and Wycherley, unveiling the peccadilloes of the age in so strange a light, that even, as we grew wiser over their pages, we also grew in a ten-fold degree more disposed to ridicule the ways of the wise; and Le Sage, and Fielding, and Smollett, and a thousand more, who, knowing the weak side of nature, tickled it with the sharp stings of their wit.

Our readers cannot fail to have observed the sudden turn for the comic, which has recently discovered itself in the literary public. Formerly, the maxim was-" You are nothing if not critical;" now it is"You are nothing if not comical." The appetite for the jocose, the farcical, the extravagant, is immoderate. It is no longer "Laughter holding both its sides," but "Laughter literally unable to hold its sides." Accordingly, the magazines have become as funny as it was in their power to become; and, although it is very hard to be funny to order, and fun of that sort is generally very hard, there never was such a quantity of obstreperous mirth brought into the market before. Whether this is good for the constitution, physical and social, or for the morals of the people,

B B