the old reigning house. There seems, however, to have been some hitch in his pedigree; for, in the notes to the common editions of his memoirs, allusion is made to a process "unjustly" disputing his right to bear the name of Bethune, in which a writer on his side mentions his connection with the Beatons of Scotland; * and M. Michel cites from a standard genealogical and heraldic authority the dictum that the Bethunes were of Scottish origin. So little, by the way, did Sully know of the geographical relations of the archbishop, that he speaks of his diocese of Glasgow as a place in Ireland.

To return to the comparison with the Normans. Sir Francis Palgrave set all his learning to work with sedulous diligence to find out some of the antecedents, in their own northern land, of the illustrious houses

* Memoirs, book vi.

"Bethun, originaire d'Ecosse, mais établi en France: écartelé, au 1 et 4 d'argent, à la fasce de gueules, accompagnée de trois macles de même; au 2 et 3 d'or, au chevron de sable, chargé en chef d'une hure de sanglier d'argent." From Saint Allais, 'Armorial Général des Familles Nobles de France.' (Michel, ii. 136). To the accomplished herald there will be much suggestive both in the identities and the marks of difference between this blazon and that of the head of the Scots family of Beaton: 66 Quarterly, 1 and 4 azure, a fesse between three mascles or; 2 and 3 argent, on a chevron sable an otter's head erased of the first." -Nisbet's Heraldry,' i. 210. The mascle, by the way, is supposed to be a peculiarly French symbol, being taken from a kind of flint found in Bretagne. Nisbet remarks that it had been sometimes mistaken for the lozenge.

of Normandy and England, but without success; all was utter darkness, as if one had passed from the unsetting sun into the arctic winter. The failure was more instructive than many a success. It showed emphatically how those brilliant adventurers, the Frenchest of the French, had cast their chrysalis when they spread their wings in the new land of their adoption. And somewhat similar it seems to have been with our Scots, who at once take their place with all proper national characteristics in the fastidious aristocracy of the most polished people in the world, preserving no traces of the influence of their native bogs and heaths and hard upbringing, and equally hard uncouth phraseology.

On one point, however, the Scots must have differed from their Scandinavian prototypes-they must have owned to pedigrees, whether fairly obtained or not. The specialty of the Northmen, on the other hand, at the commencement of their career, appears to have been to abjure pedigree with all its vanities, and start as a new race in competition with the old worn-out aristocratic Roman world. The old world professed to despise the rough barbarians of the new; but these gave scorn for scorn, and stood absolutely on their strength, their daring, and their marvellous capacity to govern men. It is among the most singular of social and historical caprices, that the highest source to which, in common estimation, a family can be traced, is that which is sure to come to a stop at no very distant date. Of families not Nor

man it may be difficult to trace any pedigree beyond the era of the Norman migrations; but of all Norman houses we know that the pedigree stops there absolutely and on principle. The illimitable superiority assumed over the rugged adventurers by the great families of the old world seems not to have rested so much on the specific pedigree of each, as on the fact that they were of the old world—that their roots were in the Roman empire-that they belonged to civilisation. But so utterly had the historical conditions here referred to been inverted in popular opinion, that it was usual to speak of the house of Hanover as in some way inferior to the Stewarts, who, in reality, were mere mushrooms beside the descendants of the Guelphs.

It would be too heavy a responsibility for the most patriotic among us to guarantee the unexceptionable respectability and good conduct of all those countrymen of ours who built up their fortunes under the auspices of our munificent ally. It would be especially perilous to guarantee that they all held that social position at home which they asserted and maintained abroad. All the world knows how difficult it is to adjust the equivalents of rank between nations, and to transfer any person from one social hierarchy into his exact place in another. There are specialties social, hereditary, and official, to be dealt with, some of them having nothing equivalent in the other hierarchy,—some with the same name, but a totally different meaning,-others fictitious or

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casual in the one, while they have a fixed, distinctive, even legal meaning in the other. To interpret, but far oftener to confuse, these difficult and distracting elements of identification, there are the variations in etiquette, in domestic usage, in costume, in physical condition and appearance, which would all teach towards a certain conclusion were men omniscient and infallible, but lead rather to distraction and blunder in the present state of our faculties. It was one of Hajji Baba's sage observations, that in England the great personages were stuck on the backs of the carriages, while their slaves or followers were shut inside to prevent their escape. How many people, supposing that, in a solemn, bearded, turbaned, and robed Oriental, they have had the honour of an interview with some one of princely rank, have been disgusted with the discovery that they have been doing the honours of society to a barber or a cook!

There are some Eastern titles of mysterious grandeur which are yet far from impressing the auditor with any sense of dignity in their mere sound-as, for instance, Baboo, Fudky, Maulvee, and the like. There is the great Sakibobo, too, of tropical Africa; how would his title sound at a presentation? and how can we translate it into English? To come to Europe, what notion of feudal greatness do we imbibe by hearing of the Captal of Buch, the Vidam of Amiens, the Ban of Croatia, and the Stavost of Olxstern? To come nearer home still, what can

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Garter or Lion make of the Captain of Clanranald, the Knight of Kerry, The O'Grady, and The O'Donoghue? Is it not on record that a great Highland potentate, having in Paris presented a card bearing that he was Le Chef de Clandonochie, was put in communication with the chief of the culinary department of the hotel where he visited? Even some of the best established and most respectable titles have difficulty in franking themselves through all parts of the country. Has not an Archbishop of York been suspected of imposture on presenting his check on a Scotch bank with the signature of Eborac? and have not his countrymen had their revenge on the Scots Judges and their wives, when Mrs Home travelled in charge of Lord Kames, and Lord Auchinleck retired with Mrs Boswell? We may see, in the totally different uses of the same term, how subtle a thing titles are. The Sheriff of Mecca, the Sheriff of London, and the Sheriff of Lanarkshire, are three totally different sorts of personage, and would be troubled how to act if they were to change places with each other for a while. It is said to depend on niceties in its use whether the Persian Mirza expresses a Prince or a mere Mister. But, after all, where can we go for a greater social puzzle within the compass of three letters than in our own Sir, which is at once the distinctive form of addressing royalty, the exclusive title of knightship, the common term which every man gives another in distant polite communication, and an especial form of ex