whatever rank they were levelled with by the misfortune of their circumstances.

This is very unhappy, and indeed a most unseasonable kind of pride; and, if I might presume to add a word here by way of caution to such ladies, it should be to consider, before they marry tradesmen, the great disadvantages they lay themselves under in submitting to be a tradesman's wife, but not putting themselves in a condition to take the benefit as well as the inconvenience of it; for while they are above the circumstances of the tradesman's wife, they are deprived of all the remedy against the miseries of a tradesman's widow; and if the man dies and leaves them little or nothing but the trade to carry on and maintain them, they, being unacquainted with that, are undone.

A lady that stoops to marry a tradesman should consider the usage of England among the gentry and persons of distinction, where the case is thus ; if a lady who has a title of honour, suppose it be a countess, or if she were a duchess it is all one, stoops to marry a private gentleman, she ceases to rank for the future as a countess or duchess, but must be content to be, for the time to come, what her husband can entitle her to, and no other; and, excepting the courtesy of the people, calling her my lady duchess, or the countess, she is no more than plain Mrs. Such-a-one, meaning the name of her husband.

Thus, if a baronet's widow marries a tradesman in London, she is no more my lady, but plain Mrs. Such-a-one, the draper's wife, &c., and to keep up her dignity, when fortune has levelled her circumstances, is but a piece of unseasonable pageantry, and will do her no service at all; the thing she is to inquire is, what she must do if Mr. the draper, should die? whether she can carry on the

trade afterward; or whether she can live without it? If she finds she cannot live without it, it is her prudence to consider in time, and so to acquaint herself with the trade, that she may be able to do it when she comes to it.

I do confess there is nothing more ridiculous than the double pride of the ladies of this age, with respect to marrying what they call below their birth. Some ladies of good families, though but of mean fortune, are so stiff upon the point of honour, that they refuse to marry tradesmen, nay, even merchants, though vastly above them in wealth and fortune, only because they are tradesmen, or, as they are pleased to call them, though improperly, mechanics; and though perhaps they have not above five hundred or a thousand pounds to their portion, scorn the man for his rank who does but turn round, and has his choice of wives, perhaps with two, three, or four thousand pounds before their faces.

But this stiffness of the ladies in refusing to marry tradesmen, though weak in itself, is not near so weak as the folly of those who, first stooping to marry thus, yet think to maintain the dignity of their birth, in spite of the meanness of their fortune; and so carrying themselves above that station in which Providence has placed them, disable themselves from receiving the benefit which their condition offers them, upon any subsequent changes of their life.

Upon the whole then, the wives of tradesmen ought to consider, that the very hour they embark with a tradesman, they are entering into a state of life full of accidents and hazards; that innumerable families, in as good circumstances as theirs, fall every day into disasters and misfortunes, and that a tradesman's condition is liable to more casualties than any other life whatever.

C. E. T. I.

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How many widows of tradesmen, nay, and wives of broken and ruined tradesmen, do we daily see recover themselves and their shattered families when the man has been either snatched away by death, or demolished by misfortunes, and has been forced to fly to the East or West Indies, and forsake his family, in search of bread! for it must be allowed, in justice to the sex, that women, when once they give themselves leave to stoop to their own circumstances, and think fit to rouse up themselves to their own relief, are not so helpless and shiftless creatures as some would make them appear in the world; and we see whole families in trade frequently recovered by their industry: but then they are such women as can stoop to it, and can lay aside the particular pride of their first years; and who, without looking back to what they have been, can be content to look into what Providence has brought them to be, and what they must infallibly be, if they do not vigorously apply to the affairs which offer, and level their minds to their condition. It may indeed be hard to do this at first; but necessity is a spur to industry, and will make things easy where they seem difficult; and this necessity will humble the minds of those whom nothing else could make to stoop; and where it does not, it is a defect of the understanding as well as of prudence, and must reflect upon the sense as well as the morals of the person.

The gentlemen of quality, we see, act upon quite another foot than the ladies, and, I may say, with much more judgment; seeing that it has been at all times very frequent, that when a noble family is loaded with titles and honour rather than fortune, they come down into the city and choose wives among the merchants and tradesmen's daughters; and we have at this time several ladies of high rank,

who are the daughters of citizens and tradesmen ; as will be fully seen in the following chapter, which we shall add to this new edition, for the honour of the traders of our famous metropolis, and an illustration of the subject we are upon.

CHAP. XXIV.

Extracts from the genealogies of several illustrious families of our English nobility, some of which owe their rise to trade, and others their descent and fortunes to prudent alliances with the families of citizens.

THE duke of Beaufort, in 1683, married Rebecca, third daughter of sir Josiah Child, of Wanstead, Essex, a citizen of London.

The duke of Bolton's progenitor, William, marquis of Winchester, married Elizabeth, daughter of sir William Capel, who in 1509 was lord mayor of

London.

The duke of Leeds' ancestor, sir Edward Oshorn, was sheriff of London in the seventeenth of queen Elizabeth, and lord mayor in the twenty-fifth, and married the daughter of sir William Hewit, lord mayor of London in the same reign.

The duke of Bedford, Wriothesley Russel, married Elizabeth Howland, only daughter of John Howland, of Stretham, a rich merchant of London, by Elizabeth his wife, sister by half-blood to earl Tilney, who was

a As this account is subject to fluctuation, by the deaths, &c. of the nobility, it is proper to mention that this chapter was written in March, 1737.

son of sir Josiah Child, a citizen of London.

Two of the duke's daughters by Mrs. Howland married one to the duke of Bridgwater, the other to the earl of Essex.

The present duke of Devonshire, married, March 27th, 1718, Catharine, sole daughter of John Hoskin, of Middlesex, esq.

Montagu, earl of Lindsey, ancestor to the duke of Ancaster, lord high chamberlain of England, who died anno 1666, married Martha, daughter of sir William Cockayne, alderman of London, who was widow of John Ramsey, earl of Holderness; and from this lady descends the present duke.

Robert, eldest son of the said earl, by the said Martha, who succeeded his father in the earldom, married Mary, second daughter of John Massinberg, an East India merchant.

The ancestor of the present duke of Manchester, who was the first earl of Manchester in the reign of king Charles I., married to his second wife, the widow of sir Leonard Holiday, knight, alderman of London; but had no issue by her.

James Bridges, lord Chandos, father of his grace the present duke of Chandos, married Elizabeth, daughter of sir Henry Bernard, a Turkey merchant, by whom he had his grace the duke, and twentyone other children.

And his grace himself married for his second wife, the half sister of earl Tilney, son of sir Josiah Child.

The duke of Argyll and Greenwich, married Mary, daughter of John Browning, esq., and niece of sir Charles Duncomb, who in 1708 was lord mayor of London.

Richard Sacville, ancestor of the duke of Dorset, in queen Elizabeth's time, married Winifred, daughter of sir John Bruges, knight, lord mayor of