his firm resolution never to abandon the service of his country, or the line in which he has now the honour of holding a command, trusting that his future faithful exertions may afford him hopes of further promotion and honour. He therefore most humbly prays that we will be graciously pleased to grant him our royal licence and permission to accept and enjoy the said nomination and succession with all the honours and privileges belonging and inherent thereto, and to unite the arms of the said Duchy of Bouillon to his own; and also that we will be graciously pleased to command that the several documents relative thereto, be recorded in the College of Arms. Know ye that we of our princely grace and special favour, have given and granted, and by these presents do give and grant unto him, the said Philip D'Auvergne, Esquire, our royal licence and permission to accept and enjoy the said nomination and succession to the Sovereignty of the said Duchy of Bouillon, and to unite the arms of the said Duchy to his own, provided that the several documents relative thereto be recorded in the College of Arms, otherwise this our royal licence and permission to be void and of none effect. Our will and pleasure therefore is, that you, Charles, Duke of Norfolk, to whom the cognizance of matters of this nature doth properly belong, do require and command that this our concession and declaration be registered in our College of Arms, to the end that our officers of arms and all others, upon occasions, may take full notice and have knowledge thereof, and for so doing, this shall be your warrant. Given at our Court, at St. James's, the

twenty-seventh day of February, 1792, in the thirty-second year of our reign.

"By His Majesty's command,

"HENRY DUNDAS.

"Extracted from the records of the College of Arms,

London, and examined therewith this 29th of November,

1802, by me,

"RALPH BIGLAND,

"Richmond Herald."

The De la Poles.

"Fortune and merit had from an humble station elevated them to the first place among mankind. They had been all things, and all was of little value."-GIBBON.

WHEN the first Napoleon, in the bitterness of disappointment at being thwarted by the English in his dreams of universal empire, called us "a nation of shopkeepers," he meant it as a term of reproach and an expression of contempt, affecting to despise trade as a pursuit less honourable than his own profession of arms. But the great soldier, who was also no mean jurist, forgot the lessons taught by History-he forgot that while war was a primitive and barbarous pursuit, practised by the nude and untutored savage, in common with the belted knight, Trade, in its beneficent and expansive aspect, required in its possessor no ordinary intellectual culture— was stamped with the impress of civilization-was the herald of peace, and the bright chain which bound in harmony the family of nations. To whom was Europe first indebted for the acquisition of knowledge? Five hundred years before the Christian era, the Phoenician merchants carried with them, from the cradle of literatureEgypt, the sciences and arts, especially astronomy, navigation, and the use of letters, which they diffused as they passed from Sidon, spreading themselves along the shores of the Mediterranean to Spain and the Britannic Isles.

And again, in the glorious epoch of Genoa la Superba, and in England, in the palmiest days of her chivalry, the days of Sir John Chandos and Sir Walter Manny, Trade was not despised, as Napoleon affected to despise it. The Merchant Princes of England, whose navies rode upon the waters that touched on every shore, occupied prominent places in our nation's history, as patriots, statesmen, and warriors, and won, by their merits, the most brilliant coronets in the peerage. Aristocratic isolation was not at any time characteristic of the English. There was always a social intercommunication of the most friendly character between the aristocracy and the people. The former were constantly sending down their sons and grandsons to mix with, and be of the people, and the latter were sending up theirs, to be of the aristocracy. The doors of the great temple of the Peerage were left wide open for all to enter. Thus these two great classes, the higher and the lower, were knit together in a union of interest and pride in their country and its institutions, in which lay the true secret of the growth, and power, and glory of England.

The first and the greatest of these princely traders was WILLIAM DE LA POLE, the "beloved merchant" of the great Edward III. The rich and prosperous seaport of Ravenser, at the mouth of the Humber, had the honour, towards the close of the thirteenth century, of giving him birth. The son of a merchant, he was educated in the mysteries of trade as a science, and practised it as a science. In the course of time he was attracted to the superior advantages, in privileges and free customs, of the town of Kingston-upon-Hull, to which he removed.

Here, by his skill and industry, his probity and honourable dealing, he advanced in wealth and trading, until his ships sought commerce on every sea.

His house at Kingston-upon-Hull was of the most splendid description, adorned with massive towers, rivalling the Baronial Halls of England of that period. In this his stately home, he kept up a degree of magnificence rarely equalled by the wealthiest noblemen of the day, and entertained and lived in the most sumptuous manner. The most loyal of subjects, he was devotedly attached to the person of the King, whose chivalrous character he never ceased to admire. When Edward, with his nobles, his knights bannerets, and their esquires, was on his way to the north, to chastise the Scots, who, with Randolf and Douglas at their head, burst over the borders twenty thousand strong, and were ravaging Cumberland, he was entertained by De la Pole with unbounded munificence. On bended knee the prince merchant knelt on the occasion before his sovereign, and rose a "belted knight," in the brilliant cortége which followed Edward. The campaign was abrupt and inglorious to the Scots; for when Edward appeared before them at the River Wear, they left a division to guard the pass, and retired to their huts in the mountain; "where," says Froissart, "they made marvellously great fires, and about midnight set up such a blasting and noise with their horns, that it seemed as if all the great devils from hell were assembled together." After two nights spent in this manner, they disappeared back again over the borders as they came.