but on doing as they were requested, they found it was too true. "Hurrah! hurrah!" at this moment exclaimed old Bammel, coming into the room, "we've nicked you, lads-jigg'd if we han't tho'-we've had a nice run in Shepherd's Cove all the time you were watching this old gentleman in Fisher's cavern. Too late, boys-all saved the whole crop; jigg'd if it aint." Some communication of the same sort must have been made to Mr Wallop, for a smile had replaced the former stern expression of his countenance, as he brought Jane Lorimer into the library, and presented her to the party. "I thought you had gone for a specimen of a shell!" exclaimed Sophronia, disappointed. 66 "And so I have," replied the old man, as perfect an example of the Venus Rustica as ever I saw ; but not a word more. There has been a great mistake here,-Charles, show Miss Haggersbagge and her crew out of the premises,-lock all the gates,-send for Mrs Lorimer without loss of time, and marry Jane within this week. If you don't, hang me if I don't marry her myself!" "That's the trick," said Captain Slap, as he hurried the party off; "I'll keep the rest of my liver, and send Bubb to the right about-geology aint such a bad study after all-at all events, it has done me more good than my troop of brown heroes in John Company's Snapdragons." SOPHOCLES-TRACHINLE. VENUS Swayeth all below,- How by many a luring wile Or him, the God whose force can make From the far Eniadæ, Came the river-warrior on, Glorious Thebes his rival bore,- Thebes whence Bacchus sprang of yore,- Fir'd by love, in act to close, Sounded then the forceful blow bow; And from off his forehead torn, Н. К. LINES, SUGGESTED BY A POEM CALLED THE "FLIGHT OF YOUTH," IN THE AUGUST NUMBER OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE. MINSTREL! thou hast poured a strain I could list, and list again, Ever since have I been haunted, Hath the Minstrel spoken truly ? Once again to clasp as, burning, Time, alas! hath iron sway: Dull old Time! he little knoweth On the night-breeze riding free, Once more wand'ring merrily, Minstrel, saidst thou," Youth is gone, Therefore will I not to wo Yield myself unduly ; For when Youth his flight hath taken, I shall not be all forsaken. K. H. THE ABBEY. CORONATION SONNETS. How strange to see that creature young and fair, The ensigns dread assume of sovereign power: And claim a mighty kingdom for her dower. Oh! crowns are weighty less with gems than care! Shall one so slight such stately burthen wear? And in those femininely feeble hands The orb of empire how shall she upbear? How wield the sceptre of those wide-spread lands, Whose strength and wisdom kneel for her commands? Yet that calm brow bespeaks a placid breast As there in innocence august she stands; Perchance that weakness may protect her best, Which doth suffuse our gazing eyes with tears Of joy that is intenser made by fears. THE CROWNING. How dazzling flash the streams of coloured light, When on her sacred brow the crown is placed! And straight her peers and dames, with haughty haste, There coronets assume, as is their right. The sudden blaze makes all the temple bright, As if the temple smiled to see her crowned. All eyes dilate with that imposing sightAll voices make the vaulted roof rebound With shouts, in which the cannons' roar is drowned, That burst in thunder on the startled ear. The lofty anthem swells the pomp of sound. It is no slavish clamour that we make, Who, born ourselves to reign, in her revere The kingly nature that ourselves partake. * Some did sneer (strange though it seem) at the incident which rendered Lord Rolle's homage an occasion of displaying the amiable character of his gracious SoveBut the vile will talk villany." reign. 66 THE SENTIMENT OF FAMILY ANTIQUITY. AMONG the many phenomena which present themselves to the student of the philosophy of the human mind, there are few more interesting than that which may be called the Sentiment of Family Antiquity; by which must be understood, in the following notice, that respect which individuals feel for themselves and others from the circumstance of descent from a family or persons of note. The times in which we live are such as to make a speculation on this topic any thing but unprofitable. It is evident that all notion of family consequence takes its origin from the fact of some one person having been, at some time more or less remote as may be, distinguished in some way, from whom persons derive their notion of family consequence together with their birth. And in saying "distinguished," we mean to exclude the notion of persons being necessarily virtuous or successful, i. e. distinguished well; for, in course of time, descendants may obtain a notion of family consequence from the circumstance of springing from an ancestor who was vicious or unsuccessful, only because he was known (notus, nobilis) or distinguished from other persons. And so, too, we hold it no proof against the truth of our position, that there are families-like that of the yeoman in the New Forest, whose ancestor was there when King Rufus was killed who have nothing to show but long existence, without a rise, in a humble condition of life; because the fact that the existence of their ancestor, at such and such a remote period, if well ascertained, is, of itself, a distinction of him and them. In the Greek and Roman story we find all associations looking this way. The Greek, for example, teeming with patronymical designations, all telling the tale of some ancient hero and his glories the Danaidæ, Heraclidæ, Erectheida-with what heightening of poetical effect the readers and lovers of the Attic Tragedy well know. The chorus at line 820 of the Medea, opens with Ερεχθείδαι τὸ παλαιὸν ὄλβιοι, a beautiful apostrophe to the Athe- their system of Polytheism; who, in fact, their were-namely, their heroes, whom length of time and dimness of tradition at last invested with the honour of divinity, removing all the palpable evidence of their humanity, and leaving to an admiring posterity only the shadowy record of their services, their virtues, and their valour. The modern genealogist finds the roots of an ancient tree finally elude his grasp in some crag-built tower overhanging the Rhine, and is content to say that the "early history of the house loses itself in the mist of antiquity;" the Athenian, looking up the long ancestral line, and seeing an end without any reason satisfactory to his pride, links it on to Olympus, and bursts out with σε θεῶν παίδες μακάρων." And in like manner the Romans, in their national name, "Quirites," and in their Gentilitial names, as the Gens Horatia, Julia, Sempronia, brought out the unvarying principle of the human mind; differing in its developements, only as far as language and manners make all developements of the same process of the mind, in several nations, to differ from each other. Holy Scripture, with reverence be it said, shows us how the feeling exhibited itself in the original people of God. They are specifically called "the children of Israel," or "Israelites," in memory, as it were, of the distinguishing epoch and person from which and whose day they began to be the great nation, "like the sand on the sea-shore in multitude," to whom the great promise of the future blessedness of all nations was made. And thus much of primeval antiqui ty. The object of the present paper is chiefly to draw some attention to the subject of British Family Antiquity. If we had any copy of the roll of Battle Abbey, on which reliance could be placed, or could satisfactorily reconcile the several copies given in print, we should be much nearer than we can now ever be towards understanding the real state of William Duke of Normandy's attendants upon his perilous venture for the English crown. But if the good monks of the Abbey of "Batayle" (so called, it will be remembered, as related by Dugdale, because founded for the health, omnium animarum que in prelio reciderant, of all the souls which had fallen in the "batayle") falsified the re gister originally kept there in veracious record of William's gallant companions, we find, in this circumstance, a proof of the estimation in which was held an ancestry ennobled by so signal a passage of arms as the Conqueror's conquering field. We have a few families, but very few, whose descent is undoubtedly known to be in unbroken line above the Conquest. Of these, one is the time-honoured knightly house of Trevelyan of Nettlecombe, whose estate of Trevelyan in Cornwall has never been out of their hands since the reign of Edward the Confessor. But while the Normans left but few Saxon houses-none, indeed, probably, but such as were too powerful to be dispossessed,-in the enjoyment of their fiefs, and so effectually removed them out of the station in which a remembered continuance of their line and honours was likely to ensue, they themselves were, it would seem, singularly careful of their own lines and honours. The pedigrees of our elder noble houses are, for the most part, well travelled, and capable of bearing minute examination in each step; for example, the Howard pedigree, which, although not in the most ancient class, is one of the most illustrious by the streams of "blue" blood which flow into it-the De Vere, merged by an heiress in that of the Duke of St Albans-the De Clifford-and, though not strictly in point here, the Scottish Sutherland, the oldest Peerage in the world, now about to be merged, in the lately created English Dukedom of Sutherland, in the noble house of the Gowers. And besides these houses of peerage, there are numerous English families which can show unquestioned descent from near the Norman invasion. To feelings how fine and elevating may this love of pedigree be traced; and in us, who stand on our isthmus of time, looking up the stream at time gone, now tinted with all the glow which mellows the past, or down it at the uncertain and not very cheerful dawn of the future, how many associations are awakened when we turn over an illuminated family-tree, or decipher coats of arms and monumental legends! The world now is pleased with a tinsel coat of arms, on a carraige, on a seal, or plate, or tapestry, because the colours are bright, or the bearings fanciful; and officers of arms have been found who have pandered to the prevalent feeling by grants which ancient Heraldry would have held very cheap. It is, however, the ancient simple system of heraldic symbols that awakens our livelier sympathies. It is, we think, hardly possible to peruse without emotion the coats tied together by clasped hands, branching out into va rious matches with clasped hands and fresh coats added to them in their turn: dry as pedigrees and parish-registers are by proverb, we confess there are persons for whom they have a very considerable interest. How many a lance was shivered for this Matilda! How many a knight would fain have wore the colour of this Grisildis ! Well, they were married, you see, in due time, at the parish church, by the parish priest, to good knightly men of their county, and here you see a goodly line from them; this son fell at Towton-this fought on the Red Rose side-this took blows and favours with the White. Ah! and here we find "jacent sepultæ ;" they lie in the family aisle in the old church: Requiescant. However, as we come nearer to our own times, some of the most ancient names disappear, and many others meet us which now occupy a distinguished place in the family history of our country. And further, we find those systems of heraldry divulged, which have effectually, in the end, completed the extinction of genuine heraldic taste; although the object of their authors was to sustain it. 66 An English work on Heraldry was first printed in the year 1486, and pur ported to be written by Dame Juliana Berners, Prioress of Sopwell in Hert. fordshire. Mr Dallaway very properly says, that the Prioress, however, cannot be admitted amongst the writers upon Heraldry, even as a translator of Upton." We do not mean to moot the question whether Dame Juliana Berners did, or did not, make the translation herself, though, if we did, we think we should take part with the accomplished lady against Mr Dallaway; but only to state fully what he hints at,-namely, that the heraldic part of the "Boke of St Albans" is a translation in part, but altogether a compilation from the work of Nicholas Upton, Canon of Sarum, temp. Hen. VI. We make this assertion from an actual comparison of the Bodleian copy of the "Boke of St Albans," with Upton's treatise, printed with others, in one volume, by Byssle Clarencieux, in |