329 
1887 .] Mr T. B. Sprague on a Fruitful Marriage. 
through the male line. In other cases, the name of the grandfather 
is not given, hut under the Collateral Branches we have the names 
of the uncles and aunts of the peer, with particulars as to their 
children and grandchildren through the male line. In still other 
cases, when all the uncles and aunts of the peer are dead, the 
particulars as to them are no longer given ; but the children of 
the uncles (who are cousins of the peer) are placed among the 
Collateral Branches, and information is given as to the marriages of 
the males and their children, and as to the marriages and children 
of more distant male relatives, whose number is sometimes very 
great. 
An examination of a single copy of Lodge’s Peerage was sufficient 
to show that the information as to the collateral branches, lacks 
the completeness that is necessary for the purposes I had in view. 
We constantly find it stated there that a particular man is dead, 
but no date of death is given ; or that he is married and has issue, 
but the date of marriage and the names of his children are not 
given. The book claims to be corrected by the nobility; and, 
although this may tend to secure accuracy as regards the immediate 
family, the information as to the collateral branches is, in many 
cases, just such as might be given by the head of the family, in 
correcting the proofs from memory. He has not kept up intimate 
relations with the numerous younger branches of the family ; but, 
on looking through the proofs, and coming upon the name of a 
cousin or other more remote relative, he remembers having heard 
that he is dead, or that he is married and has children ; and 
having no record at hand that will give him the exact date of 
marriage or death, he contents himself with stating the mere fact 
of marriage or death, without the date. A comparison of the 
editions of Lodge for different years, subsequently proved that the in- 
formation as to the collateral branches is in other respects deficient, 
and that the marriages and births of children among them are not 
regularly recorded in the work, from year to year, as they take place; 
in fact, sometimes a marriage is not recorded for many years after 
it has taken place ; and when it is first mentioned, a long list of 
children of the marriage is given in addition. The fact, therefore, 
that a man whose name appears among the collateral branches in 
Lodge’s Peerage for any year, is not stated to have been married, 
