money-bags which he had resolved to empty in law against him, Audley, then in office in the court of wards, with a sar castic grin, asked whether the bags had any bottom. "Ay," replied the exulting possessor, striking them. "In that case I care not," retorted the cynical officer; "for in this court I have a constant spring, and I cannot spend in other courts more than I gain in this." He had at once the meanness which would evade the law, and the spirit which could resist it. His was 66 a meanness that soars, And a pride that would lick the dust." This philosophical usurer never pressed hard for his debts; like the fowler, he never shook his nets, lest he might startlesatisfied with having in command his victims without appearing to hold them. With great fondness, he compared his bonds to infants, which battle best by sleeping. To battle is to be nourished, a term still retained at the University of Oxford. His familiar companions were all subordinate actors in the great piece of roguery he was performing. When not taken by surprise, on his table usually lay opened a great bible, with Bishop Andrew's folio Sermons, which often gave him an opportunity of railing at the covetousness of the clergy, declaring their religion was a mere preach, and that the times would never be well until we had Queen Elizabeth's Protestants again in fashion. He was aware of all the evils arising out of a population beyond the means of subsistence, and dreaded an inundation of men, spreading like "the spawn of a cod." Hence he considered marriage with a modern religious political economist as very dangerous; bitterly censuring the clergy, whose children, he said, never thrived, and whose widows were left destitute. An apostolical life, according to him, required only books, meat, and drink, to be had for fifty pounds a year. Celibacy, voluntary poverty, and all the mortifications of a primitive Christian, were the virtues practised by this Puritan among his money-bags. The genius of Audley had crept out of the purlieus of Guildhall, and entered the Temple, and at length was enabled to purchase his office at that remarkable institution, the court of wards. The entire fortunes of those whom we now call wards in chancery, were in the hands, and often submitted to the arts or the tyranny, of the officers of this court. When Audley was asked the value of this new office, he replied, that "it might be worth some thousands of pounds to him who, after his death, would instantly go to heaven; twice as much to him who would go to purgatory; and nobody knows what to him who would adventure to go to hell." Such was the profligate saying of this pious casuistry of a witty usurer. Whether he undertook this last adventure for his £400,000, how can his biographer decide? If in the courts of wards he pounced on incumbrances which lay on estates, and prowled about to discover the craving wants of their owners, it appears that he also received liberal fees from the relatives of young heirs, to protect them from the rapacity of some great persons, but who could not certainly exceed him in subtility. He was an admirable lawyer, for he was not satisfied with hearing, but examined his clients, which he called "pinching the cause where he perceived it was foundered." He made two observations on clients and lawyers, which have not lost their poignancy: "Many clients, in telling their case, rather plead than relate it; so that the advocate heareth not the true state of it till opened by the adverse party. Some lawyers seem to keep an insurance office in their chambers, and will warrant any cause, knowing that if they fail they lose nothing but what was long since lost-their credit." The career of Audley's ambition closed with the extinction of the court of wards, by which he incurred the loss of £100,000. On that occasion he observed, that "his ordinary losses were as the shavings of his beard, which only grew the faster by cutting; but the loss of this place was like the cutting off of a member which was irrecoverable." The hoary usurer pined at the decline of his genius, discoursed on the vanity of the world, and hinted at a retreat. A facetious friend told him of a story of an old rat, who, having acquainted the young rats that he would at length retire to his hole, desired none to come near him; their curiosity after some days led them to venture to look in, and there they discovered the old rat sitting in the midst of a rich Parmesan cheese. It is probable that the loss of the last £100,000 disturbed his digestion, for he did not long survive his court of wards. Such was this man, converting wisdom into cunning, invention into trickery, and wit into cynicism. Engaged in no honourable cause, he showed a mind resolved-making plain the crooked, and involved he trod. "Sustine et abstine," (bear and forbear,) was the great principle of Epictetus; and our moneyed stoic bore all the contempt and hatred of the living smilingly; while he forbore all the consolation of our common nature to obtain his end. He died in unblessed celibacy; and thus he received the curse of the living for his rapine, while the stranger who grasped the money he had thus raked together, owed him no gratitude at his death. (D'ISRAELI.) “A miser, until he dies, does nothing right." 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. says: How different are the opinions of modern times. Bacon "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, 66 Lo! old skin-flint comes; In his dry eyes what parsimony stares! That I might his thousands squander." RISE OF THREE TITLED FAMILIES. "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 LANDSDOWN FAMILY. "Oh! that estates, degrees, and offices 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, This man, "Not out of cunning, but a train Of jostling atoms in the brain." 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." |