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The authority for the maternal ancestry of Smithson, as set forth 

 in the New American Cyclopcedia is probably nothing more than an 

 adaptation of this testamentary autobiographic note ; as other 

 statements with which it is accompanied are not only vague but 

 inaccurate. That James Smithson was a son of the first Duke of 

 3S"orthumberland is very possible ; though if so it must have been in 

 such a way as renders his change of name in mature years a curious 

 assertion of an alliance that added the bend sinister to any heraldic 

 honours he might thereby claim. "Who the Macies were, whose 

 property he enjoyed, or what was his actual relation to them, no 

 where appears, so far as we are aware, in any authentic notice of 

 him. They are said to. have resided at "Weston, near Bath, where, 

 possibly, tradition or local histories preserve information which 

 might be welcome to those who are curious about the biography of 

 this singular man. It cannot be justly charged as a mere vulgar 

 curiosity that would crave for further knowledge of the eccentric 

 and scholarly recluse, who occupied offices of honourable distinction 

 among the foremost scientific men of his day, and was spoken of 

 from the chair of the Boyal Society, when death had removed him 

 from its roll of Fellows, as " distinguished by the intimate friendship 

 of Mr. Cavendish ; " and again as one who "rivalled our most ex- 

 pert chemists in elegant analyses." 



It is sufficient to say, in reference to Smithson's claim to ducal 

 paternity, that if Elizabeth, heiress of the Hungerfords of Audley, 

 and niece to the proud Duke of Somerset, was his mother ; the 

 wife of Hugh, first Duke of Northumberland, was the lady Eliza- 

 beth Seymour, daughter of Algernon, Duke of Somerset ; and no 

 niece, but a grand- daughter of Charles, Duke of Somerset, to 

 whom the appellation of "the proud Duke" was applied. There 

 is mystery, and probably also romance, in the story thus curiously 

 complicated by the change of names, and the claim of a noble 

 maternity, so unlikely to be associated with illegitimacy in any 

 ordinary fashion. But at any rate it is sufficiently obvious that the 

 claimant of such descent, however derived, who lived to bequeath 

 inherited property sworn under £120,000 sterling, was manifestly 

 no ordinary foundling. There is something curious also in a grave 

 physicist of mature years, moving in the society of men alike distin- 

 guished for scientific and social rank, and accustomed to minutest 

 observations of scientific evidence, gravely settiug forth testamentary 

 claims of ducal descent, which he knew that every one who chose 



