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prejudices of her sons, than at the present moment; in thus addressing her fairest daughters, I look to them not only as the pride and ornament of the present day, I view them not only as the comfort and solace of the present generation, but as the mothers of the succeeding one; it is their task "to teach the young idea how to shoot,” to prompt to virtue, and eveu make the passions and prejudices of their little ones subservient to national glory, happiness, and security. The love of home, the pride of noble, nay of honest ancestry, must always lead to true patriotism; these passions, if cultivated in early youth, will remain through existence; be it therefore the design of the following lectures not only to prompt, but to enable the fair sex of all ranks in life, to instil this principle into their little ones; we shall consequently consider the subject in the most familiar manner, divested as far as possible of the mere terms of art, and explained by practical illustrations of its uses and customs at the present day.

Even in the earliest ages, the pride of ancestry, though a general principle, soon became a particular one; as particular families from superior virtue, or superior prowess, became separated from the great mass of the people, the same spirit became more peculiarly theirs; they caught the national enthusiasm, and with an ardent desire to render an illustrious line yet more illustrious, they gallantly braved the sword of tyranny in the field, or set bounds to domestic oppression by their energy and prudence in the council; in their turns resisting the encroachments of an ambitious oligarchy, or the wild theories of the unprincipled leaders of a turbulent democracy. Such was, such has been the progress both of states and of individuals; and such is the general sentiment of all nations at the present day, with the exception of a neighbouring state, during the short lived reign of a visionary philosophy.

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In tracing the descent of particular families,|| from a general ancestor, it has been urged that little reliance could be placed on the catalogue of his virtues, whether handed down to us by tradition, or preserved in the legends of monkish credulity and prejudice; but even allowing that to be the case, yet if his descendants are indeed stimulated to virtue by their high fancied notions of family importance, or even by a general spirit of national pride, surely the prudent statesman and the true philosopher will hail the generous sensation, and admire the goodness of that Being, who in our imperfect and probationary state has

formed us so that even our errors may be productive of virtue.

It has indeed been too much the practice with modern sceptics, to consider even national attachment as puerile and contracted; their bosoms, they boasted, were glowing with an universal philanthropy, whilst their actions in many instances have proved that they were solely guided by principles of selfish aggrandisement, by envy towards superior talent or superior fortune; or by an insane vanity, which in its consequences has conducted so many of them to the scaffold and to despairing suicide!

If it be allowed ou all sides, and proved indeed it is by general custom, that the feeling of virtuous importance derived from illustrious or ancient descent, is laudable in itself and beneficial to society, it will be more eminently so when the individual can separate himself from the general mass, when his family annals are ascertained by authentic records, not only proving their antiquity, but also tracing a long line of illustrious proge nitors; this he feels as a perpetuity of suc cession, which it behoves him to continue, as a trust which he must transmit uuimpaired to his posterity; and this sensation is not confined to high titled lineage alone, for the accurate observer of mankind will find it pervade the bosom of the simple cottager, who contemplates with honest satisfaction the memory of a respected grandsire, his predecessor, perhaps, in his straw-built cot.

This appears, indeed, to be the genuine meaning, the natural interpretation of that par tiality for national and family ancestry, so universally felt, which forms the great principle of the social compact, which in our regard for our family binds us more strongly to our country, and which in the gratification of our patriotic pride renders that family even dearer to us.

It is true we must feel the warmest affection for our more immediate progenitors; yet when we contemplate the actions of those who lived in earlier times, even the obscurity which surrounds them imparts a portion of sublimity to the most unimportant; the glow of our tenderest passions is kindled; the memory of the days that are gone becomes more interesting, and the instructions which may be drawn from them is rendered more persuasive. This general feeling makes the history of our own country more particularly interesting, and gives peculiar force to those periods of it which mark the origin or the progress of public economy and of domestic

liar love for the Church, however we may
smile at it at the present day,was notwithstand-
ing efficacious in promoting the love of re-
ligious order among the great body of the

tion of the time, was beneficial in the promo-
tion of virtue and good manners; at the same
time that their spirit of independence, even
under William, but more particularly under
bis successors, laid the foundation of that
general liberty now so deservedly our happy
boast.

detail; for in these we trace the different in-
terests and principles, as well as the nodes
and manners which have given rise to, and in
their turn have arisen from the chequered
events in the ever varying annals of human na-people, which though obscured by the supersti
ture. With these the sciences of Heraldry and
Genealogy are closely connected; and from
these the most important lessons either of
civil polity or of domestic arrangement may
be drawn; and we may with propriety acknow
ledge, that when we contemplate the civil,
military, and ecclesiastical memoirs of these
kingdoms, we will find a more illustrious
groupe of characters in each department, andteresting, Genealogy enables us to apply these
a richer fund of meritorious examples than
in any other, without excepting even Imperial
Rome herself, and in her best days; for those
of her citizens who most cherished liberty
at home, were but the tyrants of the sur-
rounding nations in subjecting them to the
military and political dominion of that mis-
tress of the world.

In the general remembrance of times so in

occurrences more particularly to our proge-
nitors, whilst Heraldry affords us the most
satisfactory proofs; and it must surely be ac-
ceptable then to trace the origin of those an-
cestors whose memories will thereby be re
deemed from oblivion, and recommended to
our contemplation and imitation, and to
whom we are not only indebted for many of
the blessings which we now enjoy, but in
many instances for the names we bear;-of
those ancestors who amid the gloom of super-
stition and the darkness of feudal institutions,
laid the foundations of our present political
happiness on the broad basis of general British
freedom, combining together the rights of per-
sonal liberty, of personal security, and of per-
sonal property.

It is a pleasing thing to observe, that a
spirit of genuine research into genealogical
and topographical knowledge begins to form
such a prominent feature in the literature of
the present day; this is not confined to the

If there is no study more useful, so there is no task more grateful, than that which hands down to posterity the memory of those great and good deeds, and of those spirited achievements which mark the glories of our ancestors; and though the great mass of our population is descended from a mixture|| of the ancient British and of the Saxon blood, yet there is scarcely a family, even of modern pedigree, which is not connected with the Norman descent. Those hardy sons of the frozen wilds of Scandinavia, who made the bosts of France to tremble at their incursions, lost nothing of their love of liberty, and degenerated not from the hardihood of their|| highly-enobled, but is now become peculiarly ancestors, even in the fertile plains and uuder || interesting to all those in whom the pride of the mild climate of Normandy; and when the ancient ancestry is prompted by the spirit of national dislike in this country to the usurper modern opulence; it becomes therefore more Harold, prompted William to establish his particularly a leading feature for La Belle claims, founded alike on the general wish and Assemblée, where the useful and the enter on the will of the Confessor, his followerstaining, the utile et dulce of literature should brought with them the same rough spirit of always be united. independence. The advantages which we de We have already hinted at the early ob rive from these occurrences, even at the pre-scurity of our Heraldic and Genealogical Ansent day, are very great; for the Normans innals; this, however, destroys not their intheir desire to participate in the good fortunes terest, for remotest antiquity acts upon the of their Duke, either by grants of forfeited mind with a secret charm. Like the lofty lands, or by intermarriage with the Saxou mountain whose head is lost in clouds, and heiresses, stripped their own country of all which creates a sublimity by its uncertain its valour and of all its learning; the emigra altitude, or as objects in the far-stretched tion not being confined to the potent Barons horizon, whose rugged outlines are softened alone, but embracing all those eminent for into obscurity by the distance, it forms a sanctity and learning, at the head of whom back-ground of magic scenery to the picture Anselm and Lanfranc were not the least cou of human life, in which the light and shade picuous. Though our Norman ancestors had are so intimately blended, that the weary eye been lately converted to Christianity, yet their delights to repose on it, undisturbed by the piety was not the less ardent, and their pecu-glare and glitter of the nearer objects; yet

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cease; or rather, here must it cominence; for, on his arrival, about half a century before the Christian æra,the inhabitants were merely a few

the judicious observer is not offended should the daring painter, by one bright ray of sunshine, break in upon these softened tints, if this one ray should harmonize with the gewandering tribes, possessing little beyond their neral effect.

Such then is the object of our présent lectures, slightly to sketch the origin of Eng. lish ancestry, to examine into the nature of personal Heraldry, to develope the origin of sirnames, and to analyse the reasons for their adoption; fiually, to gratify a laudable curio sity in those whose time and opportunities will not permit a more elaborate research, to facilitate, or rather to prompt to genealogical | and heraldic inquiry, and to blend some portion of amusement with some novelty of instruction.

arms and a strong spirit of independence; nor was it until after a long series of warfare that the Romans were enabled to call themselves masters of the Island. This possession, however, merely extended to the soil, as the Britons disdaining slavery, fled into the fortresses of Wales and Cornwall, and it is likely were also the progenitors of the Picts and of some tribes of the Scots, by some of the more northern aborigines flying beyond Cheviot and the Tweed, preferring liberty among the barren mountains of Caledonia, to the fertility of their native plains, under the lash of a conqueror.

It is natural to suppose that the long pos session of Britain by the Roman legions, mixed a great portion of Roman with the British blood; this connexion however ceased in the latter days of the Roman empire, and the legions being withdrawn, the country was left to the aboriginal inhabitants, and to the

As far as regards family and sirname, in the progress of men and manners in Britain pre vious to the Norman settlement, little is known; then, indeed, families became more distinct, because property, by the introduction of the feudal for the allodial system, became more regular in its descent, and because at that time, or very soon after, the general adoption of hereditary Heraldry gave addi-mixed descendants of the two nations. A new tional accuracy to the annals of the Genealogist.

source of ancestry however took place in the days of Vortigern by the arrival of the Saxon Amongst the ancient inhabitants of this auxiliaries under Hengist and Horsa; these country, and indeed in all others in a simple || adventurers were from Jutland, and having state of civilization, names were used singly,|| secured a footing in England, they settled in and confined to one individual; and though we Keut, where they founded the first kingdom are ignorant of their etymology, we may in- of the Saxon Heptarchy, and where, of course, fer that they were descriptive of some parti- || it is natural to suppose that much of their cular qualities in the bearer, as is the case in blood remains at the present day. all savage nations known at the present day; some of these names are preserved by Cæsar and the succeeding historians, and may yet be found in the pedigrees of Wales and Coru-eastern coast of Scotland, they arrived off wall; the want of a family sirname, however, would render accuracy impossible, even if the intermediate descents had been detailed in written evidence.

That the original germ of British ancestry was from Gaul and Belgium, is now considered as beyond a doubt. Previous to the coming of Cæsar, Britain was unknown to the world of Jetters ; not totally so indeed, as there are some slight notices of it in works written previous `to Cæsar's time; but though the Phoenicians, or at least the Carthaginians had visited the || south-western parts of the Island in search of Jead and tin, yet no extensive accounts of its state or even of its situation, were committed to writing, as we find that Caesar's information respecting it was received from the barbarous and ignorant inhabitants of the shores opposite to the Kentish coast.

Here then all genealogical research must

The success of these invaders induced a number of their countrymen to sail for the northern part of Britain; after plundering the

Northumberland, landed and soon occupied the country as far as the Frith of Forth, where they firmly established themselves, their pos. terity remaining to the present day. It is supposed indeed, from the facility with which they made this settlement, that this part of the country was at that period totally depopulated between the two walls of Severus and Antoninus, in consequence of the contests between the Piets and Britous; and we thus see it inhabited by a new race, whose languge and whose posterity may be considered as totally distinct from their neighbours for many centuries afterwards.

Saxon settlements were shortly after formed in Sussex, Hampshire, Dorsetshire, and part of Devon, and the Britons having retired to the western provinces, succeeding adventurers from the Elbe, and other rivers of Germany, of which all that part was then called Saxony,

found no difficulty in securing themselves on the eastern coast, and at last became so numerous that they were able to penetrate into the interior, so that in a short time all the eastern and middle parts of Britain, as well as the southern coast were peopled by a new race, who calling it the land of Angles, the name of the first adventurers, have left to us the general appellation of Engleland, or England. Such were the ancestry of a great part of our modern population; nothing, however, is known of their genealogy, or of their dif ferent familics, with the exception of those who sat on the different thrones; but even there the descent was so little attended to, the succession being generally repudiated either by force or fraud, that little dependence can he placed on the genealogies which trace a descent from these princes. As sirnames also, or arms, which are the most accurate guides in the investigation of genealogy, had not yet come into use, we must be content to remain in ignorance of the particular facts, trusting solely to general deductions from history, general similarity in language and in person, and the derivative etymology of our modern

names.

ed, that the great mass of the population was formed by the incorporation of the descendants of these different nations, in the same manner as the language became a general compound from the different dialects. This indeed seeins completely satisfactory for the investigation of our general origin, and shews that even at the present day, those of Saxon or even of Norman nomenclature may yet boast of the ancient British blood; and this consideration will refer more particularly to the western parts of England, as well as to Wales and Cornwall.

The Saxons having parcelled out the lands upon that principle afterwards called allodial, affixed new names to the different districts and subdivisions, thus giving to the Britons as well as to their mixed posterity, a new nomenclature; it is also worthy of remark here, that where the Saxons found no peculiar properties in their lands to justify an allusive name, it was customary for them to impose on them the names of the proprietors; but in direct opposition to this was the custom afterwards introduced by the Normans, of giving the name of the lands to the proprietor; it is also a curious fact, that the ancient Britons of In the niu.h century we find a new stock of Cornwall and Wales, in assuming distinguishancestry arising from the incursions of the ing names, adopted modes entirely different Danes; it is not our plan here indeed to trace || from each other; the former taking their them through the various stages of history, appellatives from the places of their residence, nor can we confine their probable descendants the latter never using more than the patroto any specific part of Britain, as their settle- nymic 4p, until the reign of James the First. ments were both in the southern and northern districts; but there is no doubt that this new race when first established, formed a distinct part of the population, though their descendants, by frequent intermarriages with the Saxons, have lost many of their peculiarities of accent and of person; the names of these original settlers may however still be traced in our modern sirnames, such as Henderson, Anderson, Jauson, &c. &c. It is worthy of remark, however, that some of the latter colonies which settled on the eastern coast, have descendants in the mountainous parts of Yorkshire and Durham, where the inhabitants may be distinctly traced from the original stock. On a general view however of this new population, we are not to suppose that the Britons were entirely expatriated from the districts occupied by it; as few women were brought from Saxony or Denmark, the new comers of course intermarried with the natives. We may also observe that a new language is now sprung up throughout the island, and as in this language we meet with a large proportion of the ancient British, and even some remains of the Roman tongues, it may be rationally conclud

We have thus seen that the south-western parts, extending from Hampshire to Somerset and so on to Cornwall, were the habitations of the Saxons; Kent, Essex, and the eastern counties as far as Cambridgeshire were overrun by the Angles, as was also that interior district called Mercia, comprehending sixteen of the most central counties; whilst all the eastern lands, north of the Humber were settled by the Jutes with a proportion of Angles; to the west of all these were the ancient Britons; and to the north, the Scots and Picts, the latter of whom being entirely defeat. ed, became incorporated with the Scots, thenceforth forming one nation.

Such is the genealogical origin of the greater part of our modern population, with the addition of some Danish and of much Norman blood; it is true that in later times, a great change has taken place from the intimate connection with the sister kingdoms, and from the subsequent great influx of foreigners; that part of the question shall, however, be con sidered in future lectures in conjunction with the Heraldic Analysis,

SKETCH OF THE CHARACTER OF MR. WINDHAM.

ON Monday June 4th, at a quarter after twelve, died, at his house in Pall-Mall, the Right Hon. W. Windham, L. L. D. many years Member of Parliament for the City of Norwich, afterwards representative of the County of Norfolk, and latterly of St. Mawes'.

Amongst other lamentable events of the last few years, the public have to enumerate the loss of many eminent men, who have successively fallen, one after the other, not so much by the decay of age, as by something of accident, which has intercepted them in their full career, and brought them to the ground, when themselves and the spectators have least apprehended it.-Mr. Pitt died at a time when, whatever might have been his line of politics, his talents were much wanted. Mr. Fox was cut off at a period when he was about to terminate a long war. Of all the events of this kind, nothing is to be more regretted than the loss of Mr. Windham; who was at once a Statesman and a Scholar, and almost the only remaining one of those bulwarks which, in a time of extreme peril, rose up between the cxample of France and this country, and, more than ten Channels, saved us from conquest and contagion.

The style of Mr. Windham's eloquence partook of his character; it was more colloquial, and therefore not so grand as Mr. Burke's. It abounded in illustrations; and those illustratious, from the propensity of observation on common life which we have above-mentioned, had more the quality of humour than of ornament and elegance.-In the character of his genius he had a very near resemblance to Butler, the great author of Hudibras. He had a mind full of homespun and practical images, taken indiscriminately from the parlour, the kitchen, the street, the country church-yard, and the ale-house door. Almost every thing he said was in metaphor; but as the images were homely, they were striking, without being stiff and formal. Whatever notion was in his mind, if the common term did not express the strength of his conception, he never hesitated to borrow the stronger name of any object which it resembled; and, in thus borrowing, he was satisfied with a very general resemblance. Some of his illustrations, therefore, though they may instantaneously strike the mind at the first blow, have even the appearance of absurdity, after the heat of the speaker and the reader have passed. This is no objection to that kind of cloquence, which both speaks from the feeling and to the feeling.

Mr. Windham was a true disciple of Burke. He had much of his wisdom, and still more of his fancy, accompanied, as we think, by a greater knowledge of nature, arising from an It has been another objection to Mr. Winduncommon sagacity of mind. If we were called ham's speaking and arguing that he was too upon to exemplify this observation by adducing metaphysical. Those who use this word seem what we consider the happiest efforts of to apply it without any determinate meaning. Mr. Windham's Parliamentary eloquence, we If they apply it to his form of argumentation, should select those speeches in which he ri- they must mean that he was too logical-too diculed the Poor Bills of Mr. Pitt, and the formal in his method of argument. This we Education Bill of Mr. Whitbread ;-the Train- deny, and we think we have said enough ing and Volunteer Acts ;-the Bull-baiting Bill, above to answer it. Nothing could possibly be and finally Lord Erskine's Animal Cruelty Bill; more easy and colloquial than his whole cours in which, confounding the objects of morals of reasoning; and if it were not immediately and legislation, and conscience and law, the intelligible, it was only because it was the reapatrons endeavoured at a perfection which the soning of a more than common mind, and actual condition of life and character would therefore necessarily profound.-It was laid in not admit. In all these cases Mr. Windham's principle, and always verging towards gene. 'conduct and speeches gave the death-blow in ralization; making exceptions as he went along, an instant. In ridiculing the Training Bills || speaking, as if he were writing, and carefully he shewed the spirit of a true comic writer, limiting himself from error. If by the term meand if Hogarth or Wilkie could have been pre- taphysical, the peculiarity of his expressions sent to have embodied his ideas, nothing more be meant, that is, a kind of technical prewould have been wanting to the most perfect cision, and proposition of general principles, picture of the kind, uniting satire and life, he had this from Burke, and surely one of the than to have taken off a kind of vil-paper copy supreme excellencies of Burke must not be obfrom bis imagination. jected to Mr. Windham.

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