This is only a sample out of the many which the history of England so painfully portrays of the evil effects of usury, which was not allowed until after the reformation. A valuable treatise on that subject was published by the Right Honourable Dr. Wilson, secretary of state to Queen Elizabeth, in 1569. He says: "It is condemned by heathens, by Christians, by the old fathers, the ancient counsels, by emperors, by kings, by bishops, by decrees of canons, by all sorts of religions," even by the Koran," by the Gospel of Christ, and by the mouth of God."

A very valuable treatise has been published in this country (U.S.) by the Rev. Jeremiah O'Callaghan, wherein the whole subject is fully and fairly discussed.

How different are the opinions of modern times. Bacon says: "For were it not for this lazie trade of usury, money would not lie still, but would in great part be employed upon merchandizing."

In all ages of the world has greedy usury been detested: it is a great nurse to all profligate expectants, who grudge the possessor every minute of life, and whose salutation is either expressed or understood; as,

"Curst be the estate got with so many a crime;

Yet this is oft the stair by which men climb." Tasso.

DARNLEY FAMILY.

JOHN BLIGH, the first of this family settled in Ireland, was originally a citizen and dry salter in London; (a dry salter is a person who sells dye stuffs and other heavy drugs.) He came over with Cromwell; and while he was the governor he acted as agent to the adventurers of forfeited estates during the time of the rebellion in 1641.

He speedily became an adventurer himself, subscribing £600 to a joint stock, in which two other speculators were concerned; and, on casting lots among other adventurers, the allotments for himself and his associates fell in the Baronies of Lune and

Moghergallon, and on the property which had belonged to the Gormanston family.

He seated himself at Rathmore, on a part of the estate thus easily acquired, and shortly augmented his property.

In the first parliament after the restoration, Bligh was returned member for Athboy, which sent two previous to the union. He was afterward joined in several lucrative commissions under government. Thomas, his only son, who erected into a manor the principal estates of the family in this neighbourhood, was also empowered by King William (the deliverer) to hold five hundred acres in demesne, and to impale eight hundred acres for deer. John, grandson to the founder, was created Baron Clifton, of Rathmore, 1721; Viscount Darnley, of Athboy, 1723; Baron Clifton, of Leighton Bromswold, in England; and Earl Darnley, 1725.*

This peer's motto to his arms is " Finem respice," look to the end, which is very well, considering how he began. But if he wishes to change it, the following would be more appropriate : Capiat que capere potest," catch that catch can.

"The deeds of long descended ancestors

Are but by grace of imputation ours." DRYDEN.

LANDSDOWN FAMILY.

"Oh! that estates, degrees, and offices
Were not derived corruptly!"

IN Rumsey church, Hampshire, are the remains of "Sir William Petty, a native of the place, the ancestor of the present Marquis of Landsdown. He was the son of a cloth-weaver, and was doubtless a weaver himself when young. He became a surgeon; was first in the service of King Charles I., then went into that of Cromwell, whom he served as physician general," so this man had to do with the smaller sort of drugs; Bligh providing the bulky sort-the pitch, brimstone, gunpowder, and other combustibles: however, between them both, the poor Irish got finely physicked upward and downward, and a precious lot never recovered. In capacity of grand doctor, "he resided at Dublin till Charles II. came, when he came over to London, (having become very rich,) was knighted by that profligate and ungrateful king, and died in 1687, leaving a fortune of £15,000 a year. This is what his biographers say. He must have made pretty good use of his time while physician

*Brewer's Ireland.

general to Cromwell's army in poor Ireland. Petty by nature as well as by name, he got from Cromwell a patent for double writing, invented by him; and he invented a double-bottomed ship to sail against wind and tide, a model of which is still preserved in the library of the Royal Society, of which he was a most worthy member. His great art was, however, the amassing of money, and the getting of grants of land in poor Ireland, in which he was one of the most successful of the English adventurers. The present Marquis of Landsdown was one of a committee who, in 1819, reported that the country was able to pay the interest of its national debt in gold."* But, then, he spoke,

"Not out of cunning, but a train

Of jostling atoms in the brain."

This man, who has occasionally been in the administration, and also a privy counsellor, is distinguished for "pigmy thoughts in gigantic expressions," and this is a fair sample.

There, reader, I dare say I need not tell you any more about this man, nor will I, except to show you how prettily, or rather pettyly, his titles jingle. He is Marquis Landsdown, Earl of Wycombe, Viscount Calne and Calnstone, Baron Wycombe in England, Earl of Shelburne, Viscount Fitzmaurice, Baron Dunkerton in Ireland. His motto is "Virtute non vives," which is, by courage rather than strength. If he will put astutia, cunning for courage, that will do very well for the descendant of the old Rumsey weaver.

FOLEY FAMILY.

"Ut prosim," that I may do good.

I HAVE got an accidental rise from humble life, whose motto will do very well for the subject. There is an old German maxim, "Luck, like death, has its appointed hour."

Byron says: "Like Sylla, I have always believed that all things depend upon fortune, and nothing upon ourselves." Shakspeare says:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."

It was fortunate that one of the Foley family had learned to fiddle. For this one, who lived near Stourbridge, was often a witness to the great loss of time and labour by the method then in use of dividing the rods of iron in the manufacturing of nails.

*Cobbett's "Rural Rides."

The splitting mills were invented in Sweden, and he heard of them, so he fiddled his way to Hull, and shipped himself and his fiddle on board a Baltic bound vessel, by working his passage. He then fiddled his way to the iron mines, and by his fiddle soon became among the workmen a great favourite. After staying as long as he thought proper, he fiddled his way home, and communicated his ideas in full concert to a Mr. Knight, with whom he became associated. They started some splitting mills, but somehow or other they could not work them; (this instrument was out of tune;) and our persevering hero fresh resined his shoes and his fiddle-bow, and paid another visit to his Swedish musical friends, who were doubly glad to see him, and hear him too; and, for his farther accommodation, they permitted him to sleep in that part of the building where the splitting mill was fixed; when, by the rudest method, (for, although he was a fiddler, he was not a draughtsman,) he brought home the plan more complete, and thus laid the foundation of a good fortune, landed estate, and, ultimately for his descendants, a title.*

The first peer, Thomas Foley, was created Baron Foley of Kidderminster in 1711.

Thus, reader, when you have a good object in view, adopt the following motto: Nil desperandum, never despair.

There arises much pleasure in contemplating such a character as this; and there must have been great pleasure to those who had only the happiness of a short acquaintance. I think I hear one say of him, while on these knowledge-seeking tours,

"I saw him but a moment,

Yet methinks I see him now,
With the dust of summer's travel

Upon his jolly brow."

FOREIGN TRAVEL.

"The long detail of where we've been,

And what we'd heard, and what we'd seen,
And what the poet's tuneful skill,
And what the painter's graphic art,
Or antiquarian's searches keen,
Or calm amusement could impart."

SCOTT's Ode to a Friend.

As Lord Bacon was for a time an influential character, it may be supposed that his judgment upon this subject would have * S. T. Coleridge.

man."

some weight. He said, "reading makes a full man, writing a correct man, speaking a ready man, and travelling a finished The author of "Le Cosmopolite" describes "the universe as a kind of book, of which one has only read the first page when one has only seen his own country."

Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," says: "Peregrination charms our senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety, that some count him unhappy that never travelled-a kind of prisoner-and pity his case that from his cradle to his grave beholds the same; still, still the same."

Therefore, to give a finish to the education of the juvenile aristocracy, and to soften down the painful inflictions they had received from the hands of the pedagogues, a tour on the continent was considered necessary before entering on the more interesting duties of active life. But much caution on this subject was to be duly observed. On what part of the continent could they go, worthy of any intelligent person's consideration, without his being in actual daily contact with a Catholic population? Even in those parts where the spirit of reformation had crept in-nay, had taken root, and was flourishing-they could not be sure of being free from the contagion of one or more of the highly-tutored sons of the "crafty Loyola." A writer of the name of Oldham had thus versified them:

"Swifter than murdering angels when they fly

On errands of avenging destiny;

Fiercer than storms let loose with eager haste,

Lay cities, countries, realms, whole nature waste."

Now, although the most vulgar of the people of the present day know this to be a bare-faced exaggeration, yet it was then in the high tide of belief. A Jesuit was considered as

"The dragon of old, who churches ate,
(He used to come on a Sunday ;)
Whole congregations were to him
But a dish of salmagundi."

However, though there was this difficulty, and although it had its weight, yet it did not oppose an insurmountable obstacle, for numbers of them went; and numerous love intrigues and hair-breadth escapes had they to encounter in the taverns of France and Italy, which would add charms to their correspondence, or serve to occupy many pages in their common-place books. It would, no doubt, be for years an interesting theme to any one of them to relate how he posted to Moscow to witness a Muscovite coronation; to recount the number and shapes of the fantastic spires, and the size and weight of the