Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1877-07-27

Review [ (British) a serious and dam
aging attack is made on Burke's
Peerage," a book which is quoted in
popular estimation in England as
"an Invaluable work to the lawyer
and the antiquary." The author
of the article in the Review is Ed
ward Augustus Freeman, d. @. L.,
also au antiquary and historian.
The works Of Burke and of Free
man, principally upon British top
les, and many of them restricted to
particular localities, are not widely
known in this country. Sir Bern
ard Burke, who was collaboration
with his father, has, since the
fathers death, continued the labor
of love in illustrating the peerage.
Everything concerning the nobility
and the landed gentry is to him a
welcome theme, and he diligently
preserves all legends and traditions.
In afectionate faith these particu-
lars are supplemented in succeed
ing editions, and the Mrs. Pockets
of Great Britain receive them as
authentic.
Not so, however, does Edward A.
freeman. Himself the author of a
History Of the Norman Conquest"
very minute, in several volumes,
with more to come, he makes his
knowledge Of the speech of William
the Conqueror a fearful means of
detecting all pretences TO lineage
which ascend above the period Of
that monarch. In general, the dry
facts of "0ld English History"
(the title of another Of his books,
are familiar to him. Perhaps we
should say he is more familiar with
contradictions than with what
purports to be facts. lie delights
in the demolition of time-honored,
but baseless claims and if we may
suspect some professional bitter
ness against Burke in his onslaught,
he certainly exposes anachron-
isms, discrepancies and absurdities
enough to show that "Burke's
Peerage' can hardly deserve the
adjective ''invaluable," so commonly
applied to it. Freeman goes a long
way towards demonstrating that
"history has been perverted into
absurd tales by family vanity;"
and, therefore, towards justifying
his inyective against Pedigree
Makers"
There were no hereditary family
names in England before the Nor
man conquest. Except among the
highest nobility, a hereditary sur
name can scarcely be fixed till at
least two or three generations after
the Norman invasion. This simple
fact is held to upset all stories
which rest upon the household
names of families before that date.
In u witty book called Headlong
Hall, published some fifty years ago,
the hero and host, a Welsh Squire,
traces his pedigree up to the food,
Headlong, ap HeadlOng, ap Rider,
ap Cataract, being the distinguished
head of the house. The mention
of this book reminds us to say that
satire and logic alike fail to make
people discredit what they wish to
believe, or relinquish what they
wish to retain. Probably Burke's
Peeraae will stand as "invalua-
BILE" after Freeman is forgotten,
just as Hcadlong Hall has passed
into oblivion, and is seldom read
by any of this generation.
This subject of pedigree is not
altogether inopportune in this
country. The credible pedigreos
are those which do not claim to 90
back more than three or four cen
turies; and thai length Of time gives
fair margin for Americans. We
are bound, in fairness, to copy Free
mans qualifying remark "Let no
one deem that because false pedi-
gree is a thing to be scented, . true
| pedigree is a thing to be despised."
The centennial has awakened in
the United States g dbsire on the
part of those ancestors who took
part IN great deeds to do them
honor. But they who cite the deeds
of their ancestry produce a debt IN
stead of a discharge, and are bound
! to do credit to their lineage. And
they who amuse themselves, us
some persons do, in following up
their family origin prior to the set
tlement Of this country, will do
well to take the doubtful side into
their calculations also; unless, in
deed, they adopt the ancestral alb
surdities Us matters of amusing le-
gend, like the griffin and the
DRAGON.