in the December of that year, the Queen offered him the Premiership of a new Cabinet; but he declined, consenting, however, to enter the Aberdeen Coalition Cabinet without holding an office. From this time till his death, January 31, 1863, he continued to act as confidential and extraordinary adviser to the Queen, succeeding the Duke of Wellington in that exceptional position, and his decease was, next to that of the Prince Consort, the greatest political blow her Majesty has sustained. He was not, however, an absolutist, and never quite lost a feeling which is almost universal among the Whig magnates a hereditary jealousy of the power of the Throne, and dislike of the tendencies of the family which now occupies it, a dislike from which only the present Queen has in a hundred and fifty years been excepted. He had considerable abilities; but his great and increasing reputation was based on his constitutional and liberal principles, his moderation and good sense, his accurate and extensive acquirements, and his great social position as a liberal and generous patron of literature and men of literature, science, and the fine arts, and his splendid hospitalities at Lansdowne House and Bowood. He married a daughter of the Earl of Ilchester, and by her had an eldest son of great promise-William Thomas, by courtesy Earl of Kerry-who died August 21, 1836, without male issue; and another son-Henry, by courtesy Earl of Shelburne-who was summoned to the House of Lords in his father's barony of Wycombe, and is the present and fourth Marquess of Lansdowne. The present Marquess has been a Lord of the Treasury, and Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, but has not made any political position beyond that commanded

by his social rank. He married first, in 1840, a daughter of the eleventh Earl of Pembroke, and sister of the late Sidney Herbert; and secondly, in 1843, the eldest daughter of the Count de Flahault and the Baroness Keith and Nairne, by whom he has two sons. The late Marquess, on attaining to the family estates of the Fitzmaurices, resumed their name in addition to that of Petty.

The house has been, on the whole, a real addition to the political strength of the country; but something of the Italian character, the disposition to succeed by finesse, and grace, and perseverance, sticks to it still. To rank among the very first, its members must have more force.

The Herberts.

E would rather be enemies of the Herberts than their annalists. Not in England is there a family of which the history is so inextricable, so confused by multitudinous branches, so conglomerated by interlineal marriages, so burdened with whole races all bearing the same

name.

The origin of this family is lost in obscurity. Its real founder was WILLIAM HERBERT, lord of Ragland, in Monmouthshire. Beyond him, all is doubtful and disputed, the genealogists and antiquarians being totally at variance with one another.* It is, however, certain that William Herbert had a younger brother Richard, who became the ancestor of the Lords Herbert of Cherbury, and of the late, and through an heiress of the present, Earls of Powis. William Herbert attached himself in the Wars of the Roses to the cause of the house of York with un

* Some of these pedigrees may be seen in Collins' 'Peerage' by Sir E. Brydges; and another (reaching to the time of the Plantagenet Edwards) was kindly communicated to us by one of the most learned of our Welsh antiquaries. But all stand in need of documentary evidence; and we own to a rooted distrust of pedigrees in which the "aps" form a prominent feature.

wavering fidelity, and so distinguished himself, both in the field and in council, that on the accession of Edward IV. in 1461, he became one of the most influential members of that King's Council of State, under the designation of Sir William Herbert, Knight, and on the 8th of May in that year had a grant of the offices of Chief Justice and Chamberlain of South Wales, with the Stewardship of the Commons of the shires of Caermarthen and Cardigan, and the office of Chief Forester in those counties for life. On the 26th of July he was summoned to Parliament as "William Herbert de Herbert," and became a Baron of the realm. On September the 7th he had a grant of the Stewardship of the castle and lordship of Brecknock, and of all other the castles of Humphrey, Duke of Buckingham, in South Wales. On the 3d of February 1462, by letters patent reciting his great services in discomfiting the Lancastrian lords, Henry, Duke of Exeter, Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, and James, Earl of Wiltshire, a grant was made to Lord Herbert in general tail of the castle, town, and lordship of Pembroke, of the hundred and lordship of Castle Martin, the lordship of St Florence, the lordship and forest of Coydrath; the castle, lordship, and town of Tenby; the lordships and bailiwicks of West Pembroke and East Pembroke; the bailiwicks of Dougledy, Rons, and Kemys; the moiety of the ferry of Burton; the castle, town, and lordship of Gilgarron; the lordships and manors of Emlyn, Memordyve, and Diffynbrian, the forest of Kenendryn; the castle, lordship, and town of Lanstephan; the lordships and manors of Penryn and Le Verie, of Osterlowe, Trayne, Clyntone, and St Clare, of

Magoure and Redwyke; the castle, manor, town, and lordship of Goderich; and the lordship and manor of Urchenfield, with its appurtenances in the marches of Wales and county of Hereford; also of the manor and lordship of Walwenes Castle, part of the possessions of James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire, attainted. Next year Lord Herbert was made a Knight of the Garter, and accompanied King Edward in an expedition into the North. In the 3d of Edward he was made a Justice in the county of Merioneth; and on the 16th of June had a grant of the honour, castle, manor, and borough of Dunster, in Somerset, with the manors of Minehead, Carhampton, and hundred of Carhampton, the manor of Escantok alias Cantokeshed and Ivelon; the manors of Chilton and Blancome in Devonshire, Stonehall and Wodehall in Suffolk; and of all other the lands of Sir James Lutterell, Knight, which by his attainder came to the Crown. In October 1466, Edward being determined to raise a new nobility to counteract the old feudal aristocracy, and to intermarry these new peers with the relations of his Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, made a match between Maria, sister of the Queen, and William, eldest son of Lord Herbert. From this time at least Lord Herbert incurred the deadly hatred of the old nobility, at the head of whom stood Warwick the Kingmaker. King Edward, however, continued to heap honours on him. In the 7th year of his reign he made him Chief Justice of North Wales for life, and he was also made constable of the castles of Caermarthen and Cardigan, and on the 8th of September 1468 was created Earl of Pembroke, and had the same year a grant in