The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-16

AS the new Marques has left many pleasant
memories in this country, IL may interest
some of our readers to know more precisely
than in most cases Americans need care to
know Just what such q promotion as this
actually signifies. Since it would seem, too,
that there is prospect Of our being brought
into close relations with the privileged classes
of Great Britain through the monarchical
proclivities of President Grant and the Dent
family, brief sermon on the peerage may
enlighten a zeal which in some cases, we fear,
is rather without knowledge roy oa'
The English peerage consists OF five orders
-barons, viscounts, earls, marquesses, and
dukes. The Oldest of these titles, and the
only exclusively English title of them all,
that of earl, stands third in the order of
precedence. 1t is of one origin, as the best
authorities now agree, with the estimable
title of alderman; but as at present used it
corresponds more nearly with the Teutonic
title of graf and the Letin title of count than
with the designation bestowed by admiring
citizens upon the fathers of our municipal
body
All the other English titles of nobility are
of Norman derivation, from the virile honor
of ''baron, a word which in the law is still
used as the equivalent of manhood, up to the
high military honor of ''duke." The title of
''baronet," invented in the time of James
the First, does not belong to the peerage.
and though it is held by many persons of
ancient family and large fortune, it has come
of late years to be regarded as q comfortable
way of ffobbing off, small ambitions. 1t will
be remembered that it was offered by the
British Government to Mr. Cyrus W. Field,
and actually accepted by the American banker
in London, MIR. Curtis Lampson, now Sir
Curtis Lampson, Bart, who sustained the
American side of the cable enterprise when
Mr.. Field was driven to the wall.
There are now borne on the rolls of the
United Kingdom 236 barons, the premier of
that rank being Lord de Ros, who bears
title granted in the year 1864; and the puisne
being Lord Lisgar, better known as Sir John
Young, Governor-G General of Canada, raised
to the peerage in 1870. .r
Of viscounts the United Kingdom has
twenty. four, including, if one may make
bull of a lady, the wife of Mr., Disraeli, created
Viscountess Beaconsfield in her own right,
and independently of her husband, in 1868.
The premier viscount, Devereux Yiscount
Hereford, dates from 1549. ia3 '' H. 500
There are 10 earls of the United Kingdom,
whose wives, when they happen to have
wives, are designated by the feminine of the
Latin title which corresponds to the English
rank of earl, and are accordingly called coun-
tesses. The premier earl of England, Talbot,
Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot, dates from
1442. This is the nobleman who is to have
the pleasure of the entertaining half a hum
dred of Pennsylvania Knights Templar at
his beautiful seat of Alton Towers on the
Fourth of July. The puisne earl is Dun
combe, created Earl of Feversham by Mr..
Disraeli in 1868.
Viscounts and barons have this in COM
mon, that their sons and daughters are de-
scribed as s'honorables." AS earls are step
higher in the peerage the eldest sons of earls
are allowed ''by courtesy" to bear the ''sec snd
title" of their fathers, earls being always
''barons,' and often ''viscounts, as we'll as
earls. Thus the eldest and indeed the only
son of Earl de Grey, who visited this country
with his father, has been known as Viscount
Goderich-that title belonging to his father.
Upon the elevation of his father to the Mar
| quessate of Ripon this young gentleman will
probably be permitted to describe himself as
Earl de Grey. ...1 .t .s .,.
Far above the earls, as the earls above the
viscounts and barons, rise the msrquesses
and the dukes, who have this in common,
that all their sons are described as lords
| Mr.. John Russell, for example,, a younger son
of the late Duke of Bedford, having been
known as 'Lord John Russell until he was
made a peer in his own right, as Earl Russell,
in 1861. r.s l ogfal1l AgaI
Of marquesses Great Britain has now
eighteen, the premier of the rank being Pau
let, Marques of Winchester, dating from
| l55l, and the pulsne Phlpps, Marques OF
Normandy, dating from 1888. The new Mar
guess of Ripon will thus give Lord Normandy
''shove" upwards of one point.
At the head of the British peerage stand
the dukes, grand, awful, and alone, to the
| number of twenty-one, the premier being
Howard, Duke of Norfolk, whose title dates
back to 1883, and the puisne Powlett, Duke
OF Cleveland, whose title was conferred in
1888. In all this of course we say nothing OF
the peerage of Scotland and Ireland, of which
the hierarchy is precisely similar.
1t has been generally understood that the
Earl de Grey expected to be made not a
marques but duke in return for his labors
at Washington. One of the Earl's ancestors
in the female line was Duke of Kent at the
beginning of the last century, end it was
supposed that this title, which has since been
borne by an English prince-the father of
Queen Victoria-would be revived for the
successful negotiator of the treaty of Wash
ington. AS Marques of Ripon, Earl de
Grey, Earl of Ripon, Viscount Goderich,
Baron Grantham, and Baron Lucas, however,
the nobleman in question may be considered
for the present to be tolerably well supplied
with 'handles to his name" Perhaps hel
Majesty reserves the ducal coronet with its
strawberry leaves to crown the matrimonial
treaty which is to unite the ancient roya
honors of the Guelphs with the rising impe
rial splendor of the Grants.
THE CASE OF 9. @. BOWEN.
mba statamapt of q q Rowen the Soutl