44 REVIEW.-Huntingdon Peerage. water as one likes, which tastes not unlike cordials or other precious liquors, with the others in that situation." In passing up the river Nile, our traveller witnessed one of those terrible calamities to which the natives of particular districts of Egypt are Occasionally liable. The river, in 1818, rose three feet and a half above the highest mark left by the preceding inundation, and with such rapidity that many villages, with their inhabitants, were entirely swept away. "I never saw," says M. Belzoni, "any picture that could give a more correct idea of a deluge than the valley of the Nile in this season. The cottages, being built of earth, could not stand one instant against the current, and no sooner did the water reach them, than it levelled them with the ground. The rapid stream carried off all that was before it; men, women, children, cattle, corn; every thing was washed away in an instant, and left the place where the village stood without any thing to indicate that there had ever been a house on the spot." It was one vast Ocean, out of which arose numerous Islands and many magnificent ruins. "On our right," says Belzoni, "we had the high rocks and the temples of Gournon, the Memnonium, the extensive buildings of Medmet Aboo, and the two Colossal statues which arose out of the water like the light-houses on some of the coasts of Europe. On our left, we had the vast ruins of Carnak and Luxor; to the East of which, at a distance of eight miles, ran the Mokattum chain of mountains, forming the boundaries of this vast lake as it appeared from our boat." Such, however, is the bounty of Nature, that the damage in this country is speedily repaired. "On our way down," he observes, "it was pleasing to see the difference of the country; all the lands that were under water before, were now not only dried up, but were already sown; the muddy villages carried off by the rapid current were all rebuilt; the fences opened: the fellabs at work in the fields, and all wore a different aspect: yet, it was then only fifteen days since the waters had sub sided." As our limits will not permit many more extracts from this valuable work, we will close with Belzoni's account of the Locusts. "These animals I have seen in such clouds, that twice the number in the same space would form an opaque mass, which [Jan. would wholly intercept the rays of the sun, and cause complete darkness. They alight on fields of corn, or other vegetables, and in a few minutes devour their whole produce. The natives make a great noise to frighten them away in vain; and, by way of retaliation, they catch and eat them when fried, considering them as a dainty repast. They are something like the grass-hopper in form, about two inches in length. They are generally of a yellow or gold colour, but there are some red and some green." 2. The Huntingdon Peerage, by Mr. Bell. (Continued from Vol. XC. p. 522.) HAVING nearly thirty years ago travelled over a considerable portion of the important investigation which Mr. Bell has so successfully terminated; having explored the monumental records, the family pedigrees, and such other documents as were within our own reach; we are more competent than most of our Critical Brethren to appreciate the value and the extent of his laborious researches. Our objects, however, were of a different nature from those of a Claimant to Nobility. Our primary motive was, to render as perfect as possible the " of Leicestershire;" and in that work History and Antiquities will accordingly be found the groundwork of the Biography of the Earls of Huntingdon, from the remolest ancestry of William Lord Hastings, grandfather of George the first Earl, to the death of Francis the tenth Earl in 1789; interspersed with monuments, epitaphs (and occasionally portraits) of the collateral branches. The origin of this illustrious and antient family, their successions, their chivalrous deeds, their pedigrees, &c. &c. may be found under the parochial histories of Ashby de la Zouch and Castle Donington. A Pedigree of Hastings of Humberstone and Lutterworth is given, from George the fourth Earl, second son of Francis the second Earl, to Richard Hastings, great-grandfather of the present Earl. Under Kirby Muxloe, also, is given a Pedigree of Hastings of Braunston, the lineal representative of Walter sixth son of the second Earl. With the descendants of Richard, we were then wholly unacquainted; though, as we now find, we had actually described them, in a few months after the death of the last Earl, in the following brief article, the most authen 1821.] REVIEW. Bell's Huntingdon Peerage. tic we could at that time obtain. century. And there is now living [1790] The descent of William Hastings was unquestionable; as was his right to the title, had the failure really occurred of the issue of the above Colonel George Hastings; whose claim was derived from the SECOND son of the second Earl; whilst that of William Hastings was from the SIXTH Son of the same nobleman, Having said this, the extinction of the Braunston Line shall here be briefly given. William Hastings, Esq. of Folkestone, who had been bred in the army, obtained late in life the honourable retreat of a Veteran Officer in the humble but not lucrative appointment of Governor of Folkestone castle in Kent; where we saw him not long before the death of Earl Francis, with his aged wife, happy in their station, with an only son, George, then about sixteen, when the mother strongly recom mended him to our notice as an honest steady youth, with a solicitation that we would either take him into our service, or help him to some useful employment in London. This was the identical young man, whom Selina the celebrated Countess Dowager of Huntingdon, almost immediately after the death of her son the late Earl, took entirely under her patronage, as the undoubted heir to the title, and placed him at the Methodist Academy, which she had founded, at Hackney. The unfortunate youth soon sickened of the smallpox; and died March 13, 1790 (see vol. LX. p. 372.) The aged father, content with his title of "Governor Hastings," and not ambitious of an 45 Earldom shorn of its substantial acres, did not long survive; and thus ended the claim of the Braunston branch. This long but not irrelevant digression shall be closed by an extract from one of the most important documents exhibited by Mr. Bell,-a Letter from Elizabeth Countess Dowager of Moira, sister to the late Earl of Huntingdon, and his successor in dated April 18, 1808, and addressed the Baronies of Hungerford, &c. to her kinsman Archdeacon Hastings, of Newton Butler, Ireland; in which that Lady gives a succinct history of the family; thus noticing the branch which has just been mentioned: "The descendants of Walter I was well acquainted with. The grandfather of the line of that race was first Captain in my grandfather's regiment, and was one of those who threw up their commissions sooner than serve under the man who had behaved to his relation and benefactor as the Lieutenant Colonel had done. He lived with my grandfather till the time of his death. His wife (a woman of very good family, who was related to my grandmother, and was her companion,) had married him for love, and being a woman of an independent spirit, after my grandfather's death, wanted her husband to go into business. As he would not consent to this, she undertook that task her. self, and thereby brought up and educated a large family. Her eldest son she put into the army: another in the law; and others into trade; all behaving referent pursuits, except one dying at an spectably, and succeeding in their difearly period. The son of her eldest son pretended to the heirship, and, getting among the Methodists, and supposing that my mother, the late Lady Huntingdon, would support him on that account, he attempted to set up a claim to the title. I have seen a small Methodist Work, entitled, The Godly End, and Dying Words, of George Lord Hastings.' Some of his family applied to me to support this claim by my evidence. I informed them 1 wished well to that branch, more so than to that of the true claimants; but my information would go to show, that they could not have any manner of right, till it was first proved, that all the descendants of Edward Hastings, and Francis Hastings, fourth and fifth sons of Francis, second Earl of Huntingdon, were extinct; the eldest son, named William, supposed to have died young." The subject must now be continued from the pages of Mr. Bell; and it is but justice to his professional skill and 46 REVIEW.-Bell's Huntingdon Peerage. and unwearied industry to say, that no man could have accomplished the arduous task which he had to encounter, more dextrously or expeditiously; and that, like Cæsar, he has given the world a faithful picture of his own heroic exploits. In the early portion of the Volume, the history is well condensed; and several interesting particulars, collected from authentic sources, are properly interwoven; and one of these may serve as a curious specimen. "" Henry the fifth Earl of Huntingdon succeeded to the family estates and honours, at the age of eighteen; having, the preceding year (June 1603,) married Elilizabeth, youngest of the three daughters and co-heirs of Ferdinando Stanley, Earl of Derby; a worthy lady,' says Burton, 'descended of royal blood, and adorned with all the beauteons ornaments of nature and honourable parts.' Some time after, in honour of the first visit of his mother-in-law, the Countess Dowager of Derby, to Ashby Castle, and according to the custom of the Court and Nobility in those days, a splendid Mask was represented, written by Marston for the occasion, and entitled The Lorde and Ladye of Huntingdon's Entertainment of their right noble mother, Alice Countess Dowager of Derby [who at that time was the wife of Lord Chancellor Egerton.]" "An outline of this unpublished Mask, as a specimen of that species of dramatic composition, the performance of which was then fashionable at Court, and at the private houses of the nobility, and to which custom probably we are indebted for so exquisite a production as the Comus' of Milton, cannot fail to be acceptable to the reader of taste." Agreeing in opinion with Mr. Bell, we have transplanted this poetic gem into the previous pages of the present month. But the most important part of this publication is, "the Investigation of the Claim." After the title had remained in abeyance nearly thirty years, when the difficulties attending the proofs of a voluminous Pedigree through a period of three centuries is considered, the result is truly astonishing. In less than nine months from the commencement of the pursuit, in the midst of unexampled impediments, Mr. Bell so fully established the claim of his Noble Friend and Client, as to obtain an unqualified Report from the Attorney General to the Prince Regent; and cousequently (without the intermediate [Jan. process of the Committee of Privi. leges) a Writ of Summons for his Lordship's attendance as a Peer of Parliament. We now resume the Pedigree. Richard Hastings of Lutterworth, with whom our previous enquiries had stopped, was afterwards of Welford,and bad an only son, Henry, who died in 1786, at the age of 85. He had three sons, Theophilus-Henry, George, and Ferdinando. Theophilus-Henry, born in 1728, was presented in 1763 to the Vicarage of Belton, and in 1764 to the Rectory of Osgathorpe, both in Leicestershire; and resigned them in 1795, on being presented to the Rectory of East and West Leke in Nottinghamshire. He was generally considered as the presumptive heir to the Earldom; and, as Mr. Bell informs us, "For some time after the Earl's death, he assumed the title of Earl of Huntingdon; and there is a stone pillar standing in front of the Parsonage House, at Leke, on which there was a plate bearing a Latin inscription, stating him to be the eleventh Earl of Huntingdon, godson of Theophilus, the ninth Earl, and entitled to the earldom by descent. This plate covered another Latin inscription, stating that it was erected by Theophilus the second Earl of Huntingdon of that name. "In his religious principles Mr. Hastings was a zealous supporter of the established faith, and a constant and animated opposer of the sect of Methodists, by which last application of his talents be incurred the severe displeasure of the Countess Dowager Selina, and probably the loss of a great part of her fortune, which might otherwise have been bequeathed to him, or his brother's family.” George Hastings, the next brother, born in 1735, entering the army, obtained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He resided for some time at Ashby, and died at Belton, Feb. 6, 1802, leaving four sons, of whom the present Earl was the youngest, and is now the only survivor. Hans-Francis (now Earl of Huntingdon) was placed as a midshipman in the Navy, under the brave sir John Borlase Warren, and distinguished himself in several engagements; but in 1809, he was placed by his kinsman Lord Moira, at Enniskillen in Ireland, in the office of Ordnance Storekeeper of the Garrison, on a salary of 1501. a year. There he resided, highly esteemed by the neighbouring gentry; and 1821.] REVIEW.-Bell's Huntingdon Peerage. and though well aware of his right to the Peerage, never seriously ventured to claim it till urged by the friendly importunities of Mr. Bell: he thus hesitatingly consented: In the following month Mr. Bell set out for England; and the narrative of his various adventures, which are fully detailed, is so highly amusing, that (if the facts were not verified) they might almost pass for a Novel. His accidental meeting on the road, indeed, with an old woman, who many years before had been a servant in the Huntingdon family, is nearly bordering on Romance. Much, however, that is told by Mr. Bell had long since come under our observation. We had frequently taken up head-quarters both at the White Hart at Ashby, with mine host of the Turk's Head at Donington, the Three Crowns at Leicester, &c. &c. and have explored and described the monuments in St. Helen's Chapel, and the massy ruins of the Castles at Ashby and Donington. We can bear ample testimony to the courteous manners of Dr. Hardy, rector of Loughborough; and the uncommon intelligence and readiness to oblige, of his worthy old Clerk Mr. Webster. Though not so adventurous as to encounter ghosts or braying animals at midnight, we had long ago decyphered the fragments of the dilapidated tomb at Humberstone, and transcribed the more perfect epitaphs at St. Mary's in Leicester. After expressing our admiration of the adroitness with which Mr. Bell succeeded with two of the most intelligent and independent Lawyers of their time-Sir Samuel Romilly, Mr. Bell's first and only confidential Counsellor and Sir Samuel Shepherd, then Attorney General, whose integrity is 47 proverbial ;-we shall conclude with Mr. Bell's triumphant climax : On the 28th of October, the Report of the Attorney General was completed, and presented to his present Majesty, then Prince Regent. "This day," says Mr. Bell, "was a proud and joyful one to me, and only exceeded by one other happier day in my life, the fourteenth of January following. The crisis was deeply interesting, and even awful; but the tone of the Report was decidedly favourable, and I had room for no feeling but confidence, when I considered the exalted and impartial hands in which it was now placed. It is true, we had some temptation to suspect an obstacle in that high quarter. Previous to the presentation of our petition, and frequently during the progress of the business, many persons had endeavoured to mind, that the intimate friendship so long inculcate a belief on Lord Huntingdon's known to exist between the Prince and the Marquis of Hastings, would prepossess his Royal Highness, and operate powerfully, if not fatally, against his Lordship's success. Such officious persons had formed, or seemed to have formed, a most erroneous, and most unworthy estimate of the august Personage in question-an estimate, which both Lord Huntingdou, and I myself, always treated with absolute contempt. These insinuations never gave us a moment's uneasiness, convinced as we were, that in so truly Royal a breast, no personal or private feeling, however dear, could be suffered to mingle itself with the sacred duties of a Sovereign, in any other way, than to give greater eclat to an act of public justice. The result fully and nobly realized our confidence. From the commencement, whenever reference was necessary to the Prince in his high capacity, his Royal Highness facilitated the proceedings as far as in him lay, truth and justice, which excluded all subwith a zeal and anxiety for the ends of ordinate considerations. The nation, and posterity ought to know and appreciate this conduct, so worthy of the Regal character, and of the illustrious individual himself. When the page of History shall record, that through his wise counsels, and steady and uncompromising policy Kingdoms have been preserved, and Thrones tial justice occurring, under the peculiar restored, the present signal act of imparReign, may be fairly allowed, as his name circumstances, during, as I may say, his descends down the stream of time, to pursue the triumph and partake the gale;' and ought to endear him even more to every honest and loyal heart." Finis coronat opus !-and Mr. Bell, who is a keen sportsman, is ready for a similar View Hollow. 3. Sketch 48 REVIEW.-Tour in the Highlands. 3. Sketch of a Tour in the Highlands of Scotland, through Perthshire, Argyleshire, and Inverness-shire, in September and October, 1818; with some Account of the Caledonian Canal. Lond. Svo, 1819. pp. 352. Baldwin and Co. THIS Tour has much of a statistical character, relieved occasionally by digressions. Tours are so various in kind, that this specific denotation of the form of the Work is essential. It is a Survey in the manner of an engineer, making minute geographi cal descriptions, for the purpose of aiding or suggesting improvement; and guiding travellers. It is observed in page 22, that the erection of weirs in salmon rivers occasions fewer salmon to frequent the rivers. In page 40, we have a long account of the dwellings and agriculture of the Highlanders, before modern innovation had assimilated them to the plans of their more civilized neigh bours. "One principal cause of the rapid and extensive improvements in this district (Strath-Tay), and other parts of the Highlands, is the advantage long possessed by Scotland, with respect to the division and inclosure of lands, without the necessity of resorting to the Legislature. Every proprietor had it in his power, by a summary legal process, to compel such a division and inclosure.......In the Highlands of Scotland, the expense and difficulty [of Acts of Parliament] would have been an insurmountable bar to the most valuable improvements." P. 59. The same remark may be applied to all barren countries. Lawyers, in their proper professional zeal for the preservation of rights, upon which zeal depends their character for integrity, do not consider that they are men who keep an old house in good condition, but never improve it. But by exalting Law, over the first principle of all law, the public good, they forget that, in foro conscientiæ, the observation of it may be no longer a duty; and that the said law is degraded into a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance. They people our common lands with spectres of quibbles, whom the Red Sea of Parliament can alone prevent from annoying their rustic neighbours by their grim appearance; whereas, by simple agreement alone, among the claimants themselves, an immense portion of our lands had [Jan. been reduced to private property; to the great reduction, no doubt, of geese, but to the vast increase of corn, cattle, and timber. In commemoration of Druidical Stone circles, we find (p. 72) that "stones is, in the language of the old Highlanders, a common designation at this day for the church, or place of worship." The following remarks upon scenery are profound and philosophical: "Scenery of extraordinary maguificence forms one of the great features of a country; and, like those local situations which are associated with the memory of somewhat of a public character. In these, events of national importance, possesses every one, as a part of the community, feels himself interested, and as far as the bare facility of inspection is concerned, has an interest of the enjoyment of which he cannot in justice, using the word in the largest sense, be deprived, although such places should be the property of a few individuals. It would be, besides, most im rate. politic, with reference both to the private that opinion of common interest in such proprietor and the public, to discourage situations, which binds by so many agreehis country, and to the rest of the comable ties, every individual to the soil of munity, and stifles the envy which the appearance of vast possessions and wealth in the hands of an individual is apt to geneextensive scenery of this description aFor the inspection of splendid and round a mansion house, the points of a public road are of all others the most convenient. The traveller gratifies his curiosity, while he pursues his journey, without further attention or trouble; the temptation to general and improper trespass is diminished, and the pretence for it taken away. The privacy of the proprietor, and preservation of his grounds are equally consulted, while the public taste and curiosity are indulged in the easiest and most commodious manner." pp. 75, 76. |