GENEALOGY. 307 



fcended from monarch?, heroes, or even gods, to 

 deduce his race from Jupiter, or to place in his 

 genealogical tables the names of Casfar, Pom- 

 pey, Palasologus, Charlemagne, Rollo, Wit- 

 tekind, &c. theie arc infatuations that are at 

 on.c very common and highly ridiculous. 



VI. Uiilory informs all thofe who would 

 pique themfelves on the antiquity of their race, 

 that the origin of all particuhr fVnilies or houfes 

 is loft in the darknefs of the middle age ; that 

 during the fifth, fixth, feventh and eighth cen- 

 turies, all Europe was over-run by iavage na- 

 tions, who mixed with the natives of each coun- 

 try : that the Moors and Infidels were a long 

 in Spain, and the remnants of the Goths, 

 Vandals, Catti, Obot rites anJ many otner like 

 nations in Germany, th.u in 'noft of the we/trrn 

 countries they could neither wrirc nor read, 

 before Charlemagne ; that there is not in the 

 whole world any one document relative to a;.y 

 family that lived in the tenth century , that the 

 nobility of Spain and Portugal are naturally de- 

 fccnded in part from the Moors and Infidels, and 

 perh n the Jews, at leaft with fome mix- 



ture of t ! idc ; th.it their tournaments and feats 

 of chivalry \u-re the invention of the Moors, as 

 well as their romantic gallantry; that in ancient 

 :uny the nobility were not near Ib relpect- 

 able as is commonly imagined , that many of 

 ic a profeflion of robbing on the 

 high way, and had callles to which they rci 



U 2 Cd 



