And glorious shines his garter; What honours more Has fate in store Ere Tyburn dubs him martyr! "Old Thomas, rise, And if you've eyes To light you through the shades, See, see, your son How he has run From beggary to beads!. 'Mong jilts and lasses Of all classes, When he was spent and gone, Beseeched and turned To her of Babylon. "And have you not Old gracious Trot, One Donna right and bright, That might solàce In such a case The conscience of your knight? "Our Chevalier Is now so bare He hasn't to give alms : Then, mother, take For Jemmy's sake, Some care of Wharton's qualms. "No sooner sought But out was brought An Abigail of rank; With this same maid "He wed the lass He took to Mass With marriage pence "Was nothing given? Th' affair was even; He settled nothing on her: But he's a Peer Of honour rare, And she's-a Dame of Honour." It should be added, by way of conclusion, that although the Dukedom and Marquisate of Wharton have ceased to exist any longer by reason of the attainder passed upon the nobleman whose freaks I have here related; there are still those who claim to be descended from the older barons of Wharton, from whom the Duke was sprung, but whose rights the attainder of their descendant could not affect. So far as I can learn, the Barony is not extinct, but dormant, or rather “in abeyance," out of which it may please Her Majesty at any moment to call it by a stroke of her pen in favour of any one of the rival claimants of it, namely: Lady Willoughby de Eresby and Aveland, Mr. A. Baillie-Cochrane, as representative (through the Lockharts of Carmwarth) of Philadelphia, youngest daughter of the fourth Lord, and Mr. Charles K. Kemeys Tynte, of Halsewell, Somersetshire, in right of his descent from Mary her elder sister. Mr. Tynte's father preferred a claim for his peerage about thirty or forty years ago, but his claim has never been decided yet by the House of Lords. 63 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF BUCKINGHAM. F I remember right, Sir Bernard Burke, in his work on the "Vicissitudes of Families," draws attention to the fact that a considerable number of our ducal houses are largely built up by the accumulation of a succession of wealthy heiresses. This is eminently the case, as we all know, of the Leveson-Gowers, the Bentincks, the Cavendishes, and the Pelham-Clintons; but it is especially true of the noble house which now holds the double coronet of Buckingham and Chandos, and whose male members, though paternally they are Grenvilles, can scarcely know by what surname to call themselves in the perplexity which must arise between "Temple" and "Nugent," "Brydges" and "Chandos"-all which names they have taken within the last century and a half, in addition to their own, quarter ing the respective arms of at least four other noble houses together with their own coat, that of "Grenville of Wootton." The Grenvilles, as we learn from the visitations of the heralds and from the county histories, have been seated, as landed but untitled gentlemen, on their hereditary lands at Wootton, near Aylesbury, since the reign of Henry I. They were county magistrates and squires and Members of Parliament, and generation after generation served the office of high sheriff; but they rose no higher. They did not care for the venal honour of those baronetcies which were scattered far and wide among the owners of broad acres by our first Stuart king; and they lived, if not in retirement, at all events out of the way of such court honours as knighthood. The first member of the House of Grenville who appears to have mounted on the lowest step of that ladder which led ultimately to the dukedom was Mr. Richard Grenville, M.P. for Andover and Buckingham, who in the reign of Queen Anne, 1710, married Miss Hester Temple, the eldest daughter of Sir Richard Temple of Stowe, and ultimately her father's and her brother's heiress. Her father had been a leading Member of the House of Commons at the time of Charles II.; and her brother, who had served as lieutenant-general |