Council. He died August 28, 1769. His eldest son died before him, and he was succeeded by his second, George Bussy, fourth Earl of Jersey, who sat for Tamworth, and afterwards for Aldborough, in Yorkshire, and Dover, and on March 21, 1761, was appointed one of the Lords of the Admiralty, but resigned April 1763; was appointed Lord Chamberlain July 6, 1765, and resigned September 9, 1769, being the same day appointed a Lord of the Bedchamber, in which position he continued till December 1777. On March 30, 1782, he was appointed Master of the Buckhounds, which he exchanged, May 1783, for the office of Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, and resigned the latter post December 1790. He was afterwards Master of the Horse to the Prince of Wales, and died August 22, 1805. His wife, the daughter and heiress of Dr Twysden, Bishop of Raphoe, gained an unenviable notoriety as the mistress of George IV. at the time of his marriage with Queen Caroline. One of her daughters married the first Marquess of Anglesey, and being divorced from him remarried the then Duke of Argyll. The eldest son, George, succeeded as fifth Earl of Jersey. He held the posts of Chamberlain and Master of the Horse in some of the Conservative administrations, was a patron of the turf, and died October 3, 1859. He married Sarah Sophia, eldest daughter of John, Earl of Westmoreland, who inherited the very large property of her maternal grandfather, Mr Child the banker, of OSTERLY PARK, near Brentford, Middlesex, and the Earl assumed the name of Child before that of Villiers. His eldest son and successor, George Augustus Frederic, sixth Earl of Jersey, who married a daughter of Sir Robert

Peel the Premier, died a few days after his father, October 24, 1859, and was succeeded by his son Victor Albert George Child-Villiers, seventh and present Earl, who has not yet attained his majority. The Jersey branch has not produced any men above the level of courtiers, though the polish, grace, and beauty of the old Villiers have survived to a great extent in these their descendants. Besides Osterly, the Earls of Jersey have also a seat at MIDDLETON-STONEY in Oxfordshire.

We have already mentioned Thomas Villiers, second son of William, second Earl of Jersey, who became the founder of the Clarendon branch of the family. In 1752 he married Lady Charlotte Capel, daughter of William, third Earl of Essex, by Lady Jane, eldest daughter and joint-heiress of Henry Hyde, last Earl of Clarendon and Rochester of that family. During the reign of George II. Mr Villiers was several times Minister at Dresden, Vienna, Berlin, and other German Courts, and in 1748 was made a Lord of the Admiralty. He represented Tamworth in Parliament till May 31, 1756; was created Baron Hyde of Hindon, Wilts, on the 3d of June; on September 2, 1763, was sworn of the Privy Council, and on the 10th declared Joint Postmaster-General with Viscount Hampden. In this office he continued till July 1765, when, on the formation of the first Rockingham Cabinet, he resigned. On June 14, 1771, he was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and on June 8, 1776, was advanced to the title of Earl of Clarendon, and died December 11, 1786. He was also created a Baron of the kingdom of Prussia. He was a man of fair but not brilliant ability. His son and successor, Thomas, second Earl of Clarendon, represented Helstone in

Parliament, and died unmarried 1824, being succeeded in his honours by his next brother, John Charles, third Earl of Clarendon, who married the daughter and coheiress of Admiral the Hon. John Forbes, and had an only daughter, who died unmarried. He died December 22, 1838, and was succeeded by his nephew, George William Frederick, the present and fourth Earl, eldest son of the Hon. George Villiers, third son of the first Earl. He was Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Madrid during the crisis of the civil wars which attended the succession of the present Queen; was Lord Privy Seal, 1839; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1840-41; Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 1847-52; and 1853-58, Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In April 1864 he accepted the office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, with a seat in the Cabinet. His brother, the Right Hon. Charles Pelham Villiers, the well-known proposer of the repeal of the Corn Laws for so long a time in the House of Commons, is now Poor-law Commissioner for England, with a seat in the Cabinet; another brother, Henry Montagu Villiers, was Bishop of Durham, and died August 1861. The seat of this branch is THE GROVE, Watford, Hertfordshire.

Taken together, the family has not been great or its history creditable; but it has remained for 200 years at the top of society, and has woven its history not in gold thread into that of Great Britain. Its greatest services have been diplomatic, and the genius of the house, such as it is, seems to be for intrigue; but it has not been without a fitful kind of sense that English nobles exist in order that the English nation may grow great.

The Barings.*

NEW family at last! In the roll of houses whose rise we have described there are many who owe their original greatness to trade, but among the political families of the land, the men who fill Cabinets and are thought of for high office, there is but this one belonging strictly to the order of merchant princes. The earliest ancestor to whom they can be traced is Peter Baring, who lived between the years 1660 and 1670 at Gröningen, in the Dutch province of Overyssel, the same province which produced the ducal house of the Bentincks. One of his descendants, Francis Baring, was pastor of the Lutheran Church at Bremen, and in his clerical capacity came over to London. His son John Baring, being well acquainted with cloth-making, settled at Larkbeer, in Devonshire, and there set up an establishment for that manufacture. He married Elizabeth, daughter of John Vowler, Esq., of Bellair, and had four sons and a daughter. The eldest son, John,

* We are indebted for the principal part of our information respecting the early history of this family to Mr Vincent Notte's Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres; or, Reminiscences of a Merchant's Life' (1854), the facts detailed in which are understood to have been submitted to the revision of the late Lord Ashburton.

and the third son, Francis, established themselves under the firm of John and Francis Baring at London, originally with a view of facilitating their father's trade in disposing of his goods, and to be in a position to import the raw material required, such as wool, dye-stuffs, &c., themselves directly from abroad. The elder brother afterwards withdrew, and retired to Exeter, and the house passed under the firm name of Francis Baring, and afterwards under that of Baring Brothers and Co., and rose gradually to the highest commercial rank. Francis Baring was born April 18, 1740, and became the intimate friend of Lord Shelburne, and his adviser in financial matters during his Ministry. The Minister styled him the "Prince of Merchants;" and such was his recognised ability and influence in that capacity, that William Pitt was glad to conciliate him by a baronetcy (May 29, 1793). He married in 1766 Harriet, daughter of William Herring, Esq., of Croydon, cousin and coheiress of Thomas Herring, Archbishop of Canterbury, and by her had five sons and five daughters. His three eldest sons, Thomas, Alexander, and Henry, entered into the London establishment. The eldest, Thomas, who, on the death of Sir Francis, on the 12th of September 1810, succeeded him in the baronetcy, then withdrew from the house. Henry, the third son, was passionately devoted to gambling, and was so successful in it that he several times broke the "Entreprise Générale des Jeux" at Paris. But some scandal being created by one of the heads of such an establishment as the Barings passing night after night in the great gamblinghouses, an understanding was come to for his withdrawal from the firm. Alexander Baring, the second