xvi 
A FEW MEMOIRS OF 
archs understand the necessity and convenience of good 
behavior. Henry I. was the third of the four Horman 
kings. Then came fourteen of the Plantagenet family. 
Edward IY. was the twelfth among them. Then came 
five of the house of Tudor. Then followed six of the 
Stuart line. After these came five of the Brunswick 
line; and, finally, Queen Yictoria. How, as Henry I. 
(like his brother, William Bufus) was a son of William 
the Conqueror, the Herberts may be said to have seen 
and survived nearly all the important changes in English 
society. There are but two other families more ancient 
in the provision of good things for the royal tables. 
These are the Botelers and the Dalbiacs, who “ came in 
with the Conqueror.” 
While attempting to judge of Herbert’s character, all 
these antecedents of his family should be considered, as 
of course they (unconsciously to him) helped to form in 
his mind those notions of classification and exclusiveness 
which seem so absurd and inexplicable to persons not 
acquainted with their historical origin and ancestral or 
legal importance. Herbert would be pleasant among 
gentlemen whom he knew to be such, according to his 
ideas; he would also be quite afiable and jolly among his 
jockey acquaintances; but, as soon as he came near what 
are sometimes called “ gentlemen-jocks,” he seemed to 
try how ugly and wilful he could behave. Such was one 
of his “ notions.” He thus caused himself to be much 
misunderstood, and sometimes seemed to revel in the 
misunderstanding. He wronged himself, however, more 
than anybody else, for strangers cared not a snap about 
his notions, while those who knew him also knew that his 
heart was full of universal sympathy, and the sympathy¬ 
seeking cast of his mind was admirably well qualified for 
adapting the most matured maxims of art to the fresh 
feelings and candid expressions of a free and independent 
