ship; and his features wore for a cerning that exalted science, and also moment a solemn commanding expres- respecting the genealogies of leading sion, which satisfied Gammon of the members of the peerage, with which he sway which his lordship would have safely presumed that the Earl would had when presiding at the council- be, as also he proved, perfectly faboard. Gammon would also occasion-miliar; and his lordship would go on ally introduce the subject of heraldry, for an hour at once upon these interestasking many anxious questions con- ing and truly instructive subjects. CHAPTER VII. MR GAMMON AND THE EARL OF DREDDLINGTON.-SAPPING AND MINING. SHORTLY after luncheon one day, of which only Gammon, the Earl, and the two ladies, were in the Hall to partake, Mr Gammon had occasion to enter the drawing-room, where he found the Earl sitting upon the sofa, with his massive gold spectacles on, leaning over the table, engaged in the perusal of a portion of a work then in course of periodical publication, and which had only that morning been delivered at the Hall. The Earl asked Mr Gammon if he had seen it, and was answered in the negative. "Sir," said the Earl, rising and removing his glasses, "it is a remarkably interesting publication, showing considerable knowledge of a difficult and all-important subject, and one, in respect of which the lower orders of the people in this country-nay, I lament to be obliged to add, the great bulk of the middle classes also, are woefully deficient I mean heraldry, and the history of the origin, progress, and present state of the families of the old nobility and gentry of this country." The work which had been so fortunate as thus to meet with the approbation of the noble and august critic was the last monthly number of a History of the County of York, of which, as yet, only thirty-eight seven-and-sixpenny quarto numbers had made their appearance. It formed an admirable and instructive publication, every number of which had contained a glorification of some different Yorkshire family, derived from information supplied by themselves in sacred confidence, and founded on fabulous family archives, of inconceivable antiquity. The discriminating patronage of Mr Titmouse for this inestimable performance, had been secured by a most obsequious letter from the learned editor-but more especially by a device of his in the last number, which it would have been strange indeed if it could have failed to catch the eye, and interest the feelings, of the new aristocratical owner of Yatton. Opposite to an engraving of the Hall, was placed a magnificent genealogical tree, surmounted by a many-quartered shield of armorial bearings, both of which purported to be an accurate record of the ancestral glories of the house of "TITMOUSE OF YATTON!" A minute investigation might indeed have detected that the recent flight of Titmice perched on the lower branches of this imposing pedigree, bore nearly as small a proportion to the long array of chivalrous Drelincourts and Dreddlingtons constituting the massive trunk, as did the paternal coat (to which the profound research and ingenuity of Sir GORGEOUS TINTACK, the Garter king-at-arms, had succeed ed in demonstrating the inalienable unrivalled splendour and antiquity of right of Titmouse) to the interminable his lordship's ancestry. Now be it series of quarterings, derived from the understood that Gammon-while prosame source, occupying the remainder secuting the researches which had preof the escocheon.* At these mysteri- ceded the elevation of Mr Titmouse to ously significant symbols, however, that rank and fortune of which the Mr Titmouse, though quite ready to united voice of the fashionable world believe that they indicated some just had now pronounced him so eminently cause or other of family pride, had worthy-had made himself pretty well looked with the same appreciating acquainted with the previous history intelligence which you may fancy you and connections of that ancient and see a chicken displaying, while hesita- illustrious house, of which the Earl of tingly clapping its foot upon, and Dreddlington was the head; and his quaintly cocking its eye at, a slip of familiarity with this topic, though it paper lying in a yard, covered over did not surprise the Earl, because he with algebraic characters and calcula- conceived it to be every one's duty tions. Far otherwise, however, was to acquaint himself with such momenit with the Earl, in whose eyes the tous matters, rapidly raised Gammon complex and recondite character of in the good opinion of his lordship: the production infinitely enhanced its to whom at length it occurred to view value, and struck in his bosom several him in quite a new light-viz. as the deep chords of genealogical feeling, as chosen instrument by whose means, he proceeded, in answer to various under Providence, the perverse and anxious inquiries of Gammon, to give self-willed Aubrey had been righteoushim a full and minute account of the ly cast down from that high place, Per bend Ermine and Pean, two lions rampant combatant, counter-changed, armed and langued Gules; surmounted by three bendlets undee Argent, on each three fleursde-lis Azure; on a chief Or, three TITMICE volant proper; all within a bordure gobonated Argent and Sable. CREST.-On a cap of maintenance a Titmouse proper, ducally gorged Or, holding in his beak a woodlouse embowed Azure. Motto "Je le tiens." Note.-The Author was favoured, on the first appearance of this portion of the work, with several complimentary communications on the subject of Sir Gorgeous Tintack's feats in heraldry: and one gentleman-Mr Charles Winston, an accomplished legal friend, and former pupil of the Author,-eminent in that science, and to whom the author is indebted for the annexed drawing, has requested the author to annex to the separate edition, as he now does, the two following curious extracts from old heraldic writers; the first, supporting the author's ridicule of the prevalent folly of devising complicated coats of arms; and the second being a remarkable specimen of the extent to which an enthusi ast in the science was carried on its behalf. First "An other thing that is amisse, as I take it, and hath great neede to be reformed, is the quartering of many markes in one shield, coate, or banner; for sithence it is true that such markes serue to no other vse, but for a commander to lead by, or to be known by, it is of necessitie that the same should be apparent, faire, and easie to be understoode: so that the quartering of many of them together, doth hinder the vse for which they are provided.-As how is it possible for a plaine unlearned man to discover and know a sunder, six or eight-sometimes thirty or forty several marks clustered altogether in one shield or banner, nay, though he had as good skill as Robert Glower, late Somerset that dead is, and the eies of an egle, amongst such a confusion of things, yet should he never be able to decipher the errors that are dalie committed in this one point, nor discover or know one banner or standard from an other, be the same neuer so large?"-Treatise on the True Use of Armes-by Mr Sampson Erdswicke, [a famous antiquary in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.] [Secondly. An extract from the Book of St Alban's, written late in the fifteenth century, by Dame Juliana Berners, Abbess of St Alban's "Cain and all his offspring became churls both by the curse of God, and his own father. Seth was made a gentleman, through his father and mother's blessing, from whose loins issued Noah, a gentleman by kind and lineage. Of Noah's sons, Chem became a churl by his father's curse, on account of his gross barbarism towards his father. Japhet and Shem, Noah made gentlemen. From the offspring of gentlemanly Japhet came Abraham, Moyses, and the Prophets, and also the King of the right line of Mary, of whom that only absolute gentleman Jesus was borne; perfite God and perfite man according to his manhood, King of the land of Juda, and the Jewes, and gentleman by his Mother Mary, princess of coate Armour." * One of our oldest dramatists speaks of our Sa. viour, in a very solemn sense, as the "first true gen. tleman that ever lived." sovereign rank attached to the possession of that important principality. The Earl appeared for a few moments transfixed with awe! The bare possibility of such an event seemed too much for him to realise; but when further conversation with Gammon had familiarised his lordship with the notion, his mind's eye involuntarily and naturally glanced to his old rival, the Earl of Fitz-Walter: what would he say to all this? How would his little honours pale beside the splendours of his Serene Highness the Prince of HochStiffelhausen Narrenstein Dummleinberg! He was not sorry when Mr Gammon, soon afterwards, left him to follow out unrestrainedly the swelling current of his thoughts, and yield himself up to the transporting ecstasies of anticipated sovereignty. To such a pitch did his excitement carry him, that he might shortly afterwards have been seen walking up and down the Elm Avenue, with the feelings, and the air, of an old KING. which his rebellious opposition to the wishes and political views of his liege lord had rendered him unworthy to occupy; while a more loyal branch had been raised from obscurity to his forfeited rank and estates. In fact, the Earl began to look upon Gammon as one, whom just regard for his lordship's transcendant position in the aristocracy of England, had led even to anticipate his lordship's possible wishes; and proceeded accordingly to rivet this spontaneous allegiance, by discoursing with condescending affability on the successive noble and princely alliances which had, during a long series of generations, refined the ancient blood of the Dreddlingtons into the sort of super-sublimated ichor* which at present flowed in his own veins. The progress of the Earl's feelings was watched with the greatest interest by Mr Gammon, who perceived the increasing extent to which respect for him was mingling with his lordship's sublime self-satisfaction; and, watching the opportunity, struck a spark into the dry tinder of his lord-cess of his daring experiment upon ship's vain imagination, blew it gently and saw that it caught and spread. Confident in his knowledge of the state of affairs, and that his lordship had reached the highest point of credulity, Gammon had the almost incredible audacity to intimate, in a hesitating but highly significant manner, his impression, that the recent failure in the male line of the princely house of HOCH-STIFFELHAUSEN NARRENSTEIN DUMMLEINBERG,† had placed his lordship, in right of the marriage of one of his ancestors, during the Thirty Years' War, with a princess of that august line, in a situation to claim, if such should be his lordship's pleasure, the dormant honours and Not satisfied, however, with the suc the credulity and inflammable imagination of the aspiring old noblemanwhom his suggestion had set upon instituting extensive inquiries into the position of the Dreddlington_family with reference to the foreign alliances which it had formed in times past, and of which so dazzling an incident might really be in existence-it occurred to Mr Gammon, on another occasion of his being left alone with the Earl, and who, he saw, was growing manifestly more pleased with the frequent recurrence of them, to sink a shaft into a new mine. He therefore, on mere speculation, introduced, as a subject of casual conversation, the imprudence of persons of rank and large fortune devolving the management of their pecuniary affairs so entirely upon others and thus leaving themselves exposed to all the serious consequences of employing incompetent, indolent, or mercenary agents. Mr Gammon proceeded to observe that he had recently known an instance of a distinguished nobleman, ('whose name' D -oh, Gammon !-he 'for very obvious | went on, evincing every moment a reasons suppressed!') who, having oc- more vivid interest in behalf of his casion to raise a large sum of money shadowy 'friend,' who at last stood by way of mortgage, left the sole ne- suddenly confessed as the Earl of gotiation of the affair to an agent, Dreddlington himself; for, in answer who was afterwards proved to have to a question of Mr Gammon, his lordbeen in league with the lender, (the ship unwittingly spoke in the first mortgagee), and had permitted his person! On perceiving this, he got employer to pay, for ten or twelve much confused; but Gammon passed years, an excess of interest over that it off easily; and by his earnest for which he might, had he chosen, confidential tone and manner, soon have obtained the requisite loan, which soothed and reconciled the Earl to the actually made a difference in the dis- vexatious disclosure he had madetinguished borrower's income of a vexatious only because the Earl had thousand a-year! Here, looking out thought fit, so unnecessarily, to make of the north-east corner of his eye, the a mystery of an everyday_matter. placid speaker, continuing unmoved, He rather loftily enjoined Mr Gamobserved the Earl start a little, glance mon to secresy upon the subject, to somewhat anxiously at him, but in which Gammon readily pledged himsilence, and slightly quicken the pace self, and then they entered upon an at which he had been walking. Gam- unrestrained discussion of the matter. mon presently added, in a careless Suffice it to say, that in the end Gamsort of way, that accident had brought mon assured the Earl that he would, him into professional intercourse with without any difficulty, undertake to that nobleman-[Oh, Gammon! Gam- procure a transfer of the mortgage at mon!]-whom he was ultimately in- present existing on his lordship's prostrumental in saving from the annual perty, which should lower his annual robbery which was being inflicted up- payments by at least one and a half on him. It was enough; Gammon per cent: and which, on a rough calsaw that what he had been saying had culation, would make a difference of sunk like lead into the mind of his nearly five hundred a-year in the noble and acute companion, who, for Earl's favour. But Gammon explicitthe rest of the day, seemed burdened ly informed the Earl that he was not and oppressed with either it or some to suppose that he had been overother cause of anxiety: and, from an reached, or his interests been in any occasional uneasy and wistful eye way neglected, in the original transwhich the Earl fixed upon him at din- action; that it had been conducted ner, Gammon felt conscious that not on his lordship's behalf, by his solicilong would elapse, before he should tor, Mr Mudge, one of the most rehear something from the Earl con- spectable men in the profession; and nected with the topic in question that a few years made all the differand he was not mistaken. The next ence in matters of this description; day they met in the park; and after and before he, Mr Gammon, would inone or two casual observations, the terfere any further in the business, he Earl remarked that, by the way, with requested his lordship to write to Mr reference to their yesterday's conver- Mudge, enclosing a draft of the arsation, it 'did so happen'-very sin-rangement proposed by Mr Gammon, gularly-that the Earl had a friend who was placed in a situation very similar to that which had been mentioned by Mr Gammon to the Earl; it was a very intimate friend-and therefore the Earl would like to hear what was Mr Gammon's opinion of the case. Gammon was scarcely able to refrain from a smile, as the Earl and desiring Mr Mudge to say what he thought of it. This the Earl did; and in a few days' time received an answer from Mr Mudge, to the effect that he was happy that there was a prospect of so favourable an arrangement as that proposed, to which he could see no objection whatever; and would co-operate with Mr Gammon |