The Vicissitudes of Peerage Titles.

"Miremur periisse homines? monumenta fatiscunt,

Mors etiam saxis nominibusque venit.”—AUSONIUS.

THE historic dignities in the English Peerage, which the general reader is most familiar with, and which afford the most remarkable instances of the mutabilities of fortune, are the Royal Dukedoms of Clarence, Cambridge, Gloucester, and York, and the old and illustrious titles of Warwick, Salisbury, Norfolk, Shrewsbury, Northumberland, Westmorland, Devon, Clifford, Dudley, Pembroke, Dorset, Kent, Oxford, March, Bedford, Somerset, Leicester, Buckingham, Essex, and Huntingdon. Of these, Norfolk, Shrewsbury, Bedford, Devon, Somerset, and Huntingdon derive their chief historical pre-eminence from the families of the present actual possessors; but the chief glory of Warwick, Pembroke, Salisbury, Westmorland, Leicester, Dudley, Buckingham, and Essex must be attributed to the earlier wearers of those brilliant coronets. Dorset, Kent, Oxford, Gloucester, Monmouth, Clarence, and Sussex are all extinct or attainted, and at present do not give designations to any existing peers. There are seven of our titles taken from places which were never, like Tankerville, or other Norman baronies, incorporated with the dominions. of our monarchs. Of these, I cannot account for the in

troduction of Amiens. Lovaine has been chosen in memory of the descent of the ancient Percies from the Dukes of Lovaine and Counts of Brabant, from whose ancient city of Lovaine, now Louvain, their ancestor was surnamed De Lovaine, before he wedded the richly-portioned heiress of Percy. All the other foreign places which figure in our rolls of titles have been the scenes of martial achievements. Mahon commemorates the gallant capture of Port Mahon, and with it the conquest of Minorca, in 1708, by James, first Earl Stanhope. It is unnecessary to remind my readers whence Wellington got the title of Douro, or what claim Jervis, Nelson, and Duncan have to St. Vincent, Trafalgar, or Camperdown.

Under the Tudors, and during the latter times of the Plantagenets, the House of Lords did not comprise more than from fifty to sixty peers. Courtenay, Howard, and Percy-Devon, Norfolk, and Northumberland--were all restored by Queen Mary, who made besides six new creations-the Viscounty of Montague and the Baronies of North of Kirtling, Howard of Effingham, Williams of Thame, Chandos of Sudley, and Hastings of Loughborough. At the death of Queen Elizabeth the number of the Peers was about sixty, composed of nineteen Earls, one Viscount, and some forty Barons, nearly forty of which titles have since perished. "Queen Elizabeth," says Mr. Hannay, in his admirable "Essays," "was remarkable for keeping the fountain of honour locked up, and the key in her royal pocket." Many of the dignities she did confer were honourably bestowed. Sackville, the statesman, the scholar, and the poet, was made a peer; so was Cecil, the

ablest of ministers; and so was Compton, the head of a great feudal family, and the possessor of so vast an estate that, it is said, if it remained undiminished in the present day in the hands of his representative, it would be the greatest in the kingdom.

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Elizabeth's successor, James I., has, on the contrary, been blamed for his lavish profusion of honours, and a charge brought against him, with too much truth, I fear, of venality in their disposal. Still, however, many a wellknown coroneţ was added by the first English monarch of the Stuarts, especially those of Leicester (Sydney), Suffolk, Wallingford, Spencer (Sunderland), Denbigh, Bridgewater, Devonshire, Petre, Gerrard, Denny, and Arundel of Wardour. Charles I. raised to Earldoms several Viscounts and Barons thus giving to the Peerage Roll, among others, the titles of Berkshire, Danby, Manchester, Stamford, Winchilsea, Banbury, Norwich, Peterborough, Chesterfield, Strafford, and Sunderland. He made also many new peers, generally selected from the most ancient and best descended of the gentry, such as the Savages of Rocksavage, the Tuftons of Tufton, the Brudenells of Leicestershire, the Belasyses of Yorkshire, the Lovelaces of Berkshire, the Pierreponts of Nottinghamshire, the Gorings of Sussex, and the Byrons of Rochdale. Several of Charles the Second's new creations were of good old English stock, and some, of families which had become enriched or advanced by commerce, professional services, or prosperous alliances. Perhaps the best born was the greatgrandson of" Belted Will Howard," by the great heiress of the Dacres of the North,-CHARLES HOWARD, whom the

King made Baron Dacre of Gillesland, Viscount Howard of Morpeth, and EARL of CARLISLE. To the Merry Monarch we owed also the coronets of Cornwallis, Langdale, Halifax, Clifford of Chudleigh, Dartmouth, &c. JAMES II., in the four troubled years of his reign, restored the Viscounty of Stafford-the most unjustly attainted of titles; made Catherine Sidley, Countess of Dorchester for life; created the Dukedom of Berwick, (afterwards so celebrated in European warfare), and added five new Baronies —all of which are extinct, save Churchill, conferred on the great general, and Waldegrave, still enjoyed by the representative of that ancient house. It was

also from James II. that the Ratcliffes derived their luckless title of Derwentwater, and the Herberts their Marquessate of Powis. WILLIAM III. raised to the peerage twenty-one personages, including his Dutch favourites, Bentinck, Keppel, Nassau, Schomberg, and Auverquerque; and several of the leading Whig families, such as Lowther, Somers, Vane, Fermor, and Ashburnham, the last quaintly designated by old Fuller as of "stupendous antiquity;" in this reign also each of the three great Whig lords, Bedford, Devonshire, and Carmarthen, received a Ducal Coronet.

Among Queen Anne's new creations were the well-born and well-endowed Granvilles, Pelhams, Cowpers, Harcourts, Harleys, Herveys, Leveson-Gowers, Willoughbys, Bathursts, and St. John's. At the commencement of the eighteenth century, the House of Peers reckoned but a hundred and seventy members, of which nearly one half has passed away. In GEORGE the First's time a less regard

began to be paid to birth or hereditary pretension; the political and legal elements predominating. Still in this reign originated the Baronies of Cobham, Coningsby, Romney, Onslow, Cadogan, and Walpole, and the Viscounties of Torrington and Falmouth. Forty is about the number of GEORGE II.'s peers; but such had been the decay amongst old titles that neither this increase nor that of his predecessor did more than barely counterbalance extinctions, and left the House much in the same position as they found it. Lawyers and statesmen were duly honoured by the house of Hanover; and the Second George chose from the bench no less than five peers, Raymond, Hardwicke, Talbot, Mansfield, and Henley. The present Dukedom of Northumberland, the present Earldom of Fitzwilliam, and the late Earldom of Egremont, three of the most powerful titles, were George II.'s creations.

The same moderate and discriminating selection marked the first twenty-four years of the reign of GEORGE III., and chose for additions to the peerage the great Commoners, Grosvenor of Eaton, Curzon of Kedleston, Eliot of Port Eliot, Vernon of Sudbury, and Bagot of Blithfield. After 1784 a new era, however, commenced in peerage annals. Political purposes, and the consequent lavish bestowal of the highest honours of the Crown, increased the roll of the Lords to such an extent, that at the death of GEORGE IV., new peerages, to the number of two hundred and thirty-five, had been added. WILLIAM IV. raised the Marquesses of Stafford and Cleveland to the rank of Dukes, and gave Earldoms to Col. Fitz Clarence, Lord George Cavendish, and Mr. Lambton,