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several generations, whose destinies are little cared for, 

 when not identified with territorial possessions, according 

 to the known laws of primogeniture. But the " tide in the 

 affairs of men " flows again as it has ebbed, and by the 

 known pathways of merit, patronage, ambition, money, 

 &c, the sons of these farmers and mechanics may sit as 

 their remote ancestors have done, with princes and with 

 peers. Tt is now that the Genealogist is referred to ; and 

 with very inadequate materials, and, perhaps, nothing but 

 a strong presumption and a vague tradition, he tries to 

 unite the two illustrious periods of the family, through the 

 comparatively obscure one that has intervened. In some 

 instances, the bridge across this chasm is strong and 

 sufficient, in others it is weak and tottering : in some cases 

 the links of the disunited chain are properly brought 

 together, and in others the fine gold has suspended from it 

 the baser metal. 



Now, it is worthy of remark that the very same difficulty 

 is presented to the Historian who looks upon Europe at the 

 close of the Roman Empire, and again at the period of the 

 revival of letters. For tribes of barbarians, he sees an 

 industrious population ; instead of smoking villages, large 

 monasteries and magnificent cathedrals ; and on the site of 

 battle-fields are ripening harvests and corpoi'ate towns. He 

 knows that the localities are the same, and he is morally 

 certain of the identity of the people; he is anxious to know, 

 therefore, by what gradual steps the change took place, by 

 what succession of events the interval of centuries is to be 

 filled up. If Genealogy, therefore, is to be sneered at, we 

 must, in honesty, raise the laugh also against the researches 

 of Robertson, Hallam, and Maitland, that are founded upon 

 similar principles : and farther, it must be apparent that 

 the Macedonian had no right to question the Histories of 

 the Hebrew or the Athenian, because they related that he 

 was eating acorns, and clothed in goat skins, while the one 



