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Chaucer's deposition, on the contrary, we think there are traces of the liveliness and picturesque fancy of the poet. Being asked, among other questions, if he had ever heard of any interruption or challenge made by Sir Robert Grosvenor, or his ancestors, to the use of the arms in dispute by the Scropes, he does not content himself with saying No!' but adds the following

anecdote :

He was once in Friday-street, London, and walking through the street he observed a new sign hanging out with these arms thereon, and inquired "What inn that was that had hung out those arms of Scrope?" and one answered him, saying, "They are not hung out, Sir, for the arms of Scrope, nor painted there for those arms, but they are painted and put there by a knight of the county of Chester, called Sir Robert Grosvenor ;" and that was the first time that he ever heard speak of Sir Robert Grosvenor, or his ancestors, or of any one bearing the name.'

Chaucer, when examined, describes himself as 'forty years of age, armed twenty-seven years.' He speaks of having been made prisoner at the siege of Retters, in France, in 1359. He was employed by Edward III. on several commissions of trust, and was knight of the shire for Kent at the time of this examination.

The list of deponents, on the part of Sir Robert Grosvenor, by no means offers so splendid an array of chivalry as that we have now gone through in the supporters of his rival's cause. One great name indeed presents itself, that of Owen Glendower' He of Wales, that gave Amaimon the bastinado, and swore the devil his true liege man upon the cross of a Welch hook.'

"Owen, Lord of Glendower, of the age of twenty-two,' deponed that it was the common opinion of the counties of Flint and Chester that the arms in question belonged to Sir Robert Grosvenor, and had been used by his ancestors from the conquest. He is followed by Sir John Massey of Podington; Sir Lawrence Dutton, Sir Hugh de Browe, and great numbers of the gentry of Cheshire, Lancashire, and North Wales, whose names will be recognised as belonging to the most ancient families of that quarter of the kingdom, viz.-De Eton, Brereton, Davenport, Leicester, Dutton, Hulse, Toft, Holford, Vernon, Dounes, Stanlegh, Mainwaring, Legh, Malpas, Crewe, Cholmeley, Massy, Atherton, Langton, De Bold, Moston, Merton, Flemyng, Egerton, Dacre, Burdet, Lathum, Trafford, Hesketh, Bradschaw, Hilton, Hyde, Beeston, Coton, Danyell, &c. Their depositions agree in almost every particular, and amount in the whole to this,

that Sir Robert Grosvenor served in the disputed arms on the last expedition of King Richard into Scotland, (when they were challenged by the plaintiff,) and likewise about seventeen years before

before in a campaign of the Prince of Wales in Poitou, Guienne, and Aquitaine;—that it was generally reputed in the counties bordering on North Wales that his ancestors had borne the arms 'azure a bend or from the time of Sir Gilbert de Grosvenor, a follower of Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, who was nephew to the Conqueror ;-and that the said arms were to be seen in windows, and on tombstones in several churches of Cheshire.

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The Abbot of the Cistercian Abbey of Vale Royal speaks still more positively to the pedigree and arms of Grosvenor; saying expressly that he has it from chronicles and ancient writings in his monastery, that Sir Robert Grosvenor descended in direct line from Gilbert le Grosvenor, who, in the train of his uncle, Hugh Lupus, came over with the Conqueror, armed in the said arms, which he used to the time of his death.'

Several of the depositions in favour of Sir Robert Grosvenor are missing through the injuries suffered by the roll. The names of these deponents are, however, elsewhere preserved. The judgment of the Constable was given (as we stated before) in favour of the appellant Scrope; but inasmuch as the defendant had shown good presumptive evidence in support of his claim, he was admitted to bear the same coat within a bordure argent.' Against this sentence Grosvenor, as we have said, appealed; and the definitive sentence was at length pronounced by the King in person in Westminster Hall on the 7th May, in the thirteenth year of his reign, 'adjudging the arms to Lord Scrope, and forbidding Grosvenor or his heirs to bear them for the future with or without differences ;' with respect to the arms azure a bend or within a bordure argent,' which had been conceded to Grosvenor by the Constable, 'considering that such a bordure is not a sufficient difference between two strangers in the same kingdom, but only between cousin and cousin related by blood,' &c. the ordinance by the Constable of the said arms to Grosvenor is annulled.'

If

Grosvenor was subsequently allowed to bear the arms said to have been carried by his ancestor's patron, and, by the Abbot of Vale Royal's statement, relative-Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester -namely, azure a garbe or,'-the coat still borne by his descendant and representative the Marquis of Westminster. we recollect, however, there is a profuse display of the forbidden arms, azure a bend or,' among the rich emblazonings of the Great Hall of Eaton. We have not heard that they have yet been challenged by any descendant of Lord Scrope; and in default of this, if the noble marquis will defy the notorious judgment of King Richard II., yet unreversed,-why we must leave him to the reproaches of his conscience, or rather to Sir H. Nicholas,

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to be dealt with in his third volume, as such an open contempt of the most high and ancient Court of Chivalry may seem to deserve. We cannot conclude without adverting to the very extraordinary industry, perseverance, and ability which Sir Harris Nicolas has brought to bear on the illustration of our national history and antiquities. The mere catalogue of his various works on these subjects would fill several of our pages; but we may mention his History of the Battle of Agincourt,' his volume on The Chronology of History,' his separate Memoirs of Secretary Davison, of Lady Jane Grey, of Sir Kenelm Digby, and of Lady Fanshawe and his Notitia Historica,' as some of the most valuable contributions to our historical literature that have appeared of late years; while his publications of the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII., Elizabeth of York, and Edward IV.,' of The Siege of Carlaverock,' The Rolls of Arms of Henry III., of Edward III., and Edward II.,' of The Herald's Visitations,' and other manuscripts in the British Museum; and above all, perhaps, his Testamenta Vetusta,' are, though less generally known to the public, of equal interest to the antiquary and genealogist. We have not yet mentioned one-half of his separate works on these subjects; in addition to which he is known as one of the most frequent and able contributors to the stores of similar information contained in the Archæologia,' the Retrospective Review,' and other periodical publications. His legal labours on the claims to the Barony of De l'Isle and the Earldom of Devon, in the House of Lords, (which he was mainly instrumental in establishing,) are well known to the profession: while his treatise, just published, 'On the Law of Adulterine Bastardy,' appears to us not only well qualified to interest almost every class of readers, but entitled to influence most seriously the future deliberations of the House of Peers on questions of that difficult and delicate class.* Meantime his efforts for the reform of the Society of Antiquaries and the Record Commission, in which last he is, we hope, still most usefully engaged-an Augean stable, requiring the labour of such an Hercules-have been enough alone to afford full occupation to any ordinary man, in addition to his professional engagements. And this indefatigable antiquary and historian, whose writings are no less masterly and profound than they are numerous and interesting, was, we believe, a lieutenant in the navy at the close of the war!

*We speak with profound deference-but we do think that it would be extremely hard for the House of Lords to make out a fair show of reason for once more rejecting the claim of the Knollis family to the earldom of Banbury, after the equally lucid and profound argument which Sir H. Nicolas has here put forth in their favour.

ᎪᎡᎢ .

ART. II.-Geology considered with Reference to Natural Theology. By the Rev. Wm. Buckland, D.D., Canon of Christchurch, and Professor of Geology in the University of Oxford. London. Svo. (With a volume of plates.) 1836,

IF there are any lovers of science yet ignorant of the extent and fertility of the field which geology has laid open, of the intensity and variety of interest by which those who explore it are repaid, here is a work to astonish and delight them. If there are any persons yet deterred from the study of this fascinating science by the once prevalent notion, that the facts, or theories if you will, that it teaches, tend to weaken the belief in revealed religion, by their apparent inconsistency with the scriptural account of the creation and early history of the globe,-here, in the work of a dignitary of the church, writing, ex cathedra, from the headquarters of orthodoxy, they will find the amplest assurances that their impression is not merely erroneous but the very reverse of the truth for that, while its discoveries are not in any degree at variance with the correct interpretation of the Mosaic narrative, there exists no science which can produce more powerful evidence in support of natural religion-none which will be found a more potent auxiliary to revelation by exalting our conviction of the power, and wisdom, and goodness of the Creator.

As this unfounded prejudice has, to a considerable extent, been a stumbling-block in the way of those who would otherwise have been led to delight and instruct themselves by geological research, the Canon of Christchurch, rightly we think, attacks it on the threshold of his work. Its origin he traces to a misconception of the meaning of the terms employed in the Mosaic narrative of the creation, from which it has been unwarrantably inferred that the existence of the universe, as well as of the human race, dates from an epoch of about six thousand years ago. Now there is no question whatever that this notion has been utterly disproved by the discoveries of geology, which demonstrate the surface of our planet not merely to have existed, but to have undergone physical changes very similar to those which affect it at present, and to have been quietly and happily tenanted by a long succession of living creatures, vegetable as well as animal, for countless ages before the epoch from which our scriptural chronology dates, and which was signalized by the first appearance of man.

Whatever difference of opinion may still exist among geologists on other points, this is a truth (as Dr. Buckland remarks) admitted by all observers;-as firmly established, indeed, and on as immoveable evidence, as the Copernican system, the theory of gravi

tation,

tation, or any other of the fundamental doctrines of science. Well, then, what follows? Is it wise to endeavour to shirk this established truth-to shut our eyes to it-to avoid the science which teaches it, and thus encourage the foolish and false notion that there is anything in it at variance with Scripture? Surely this would be the way to produce the very evil that is dreaded, the undermining of the faith of many in revelation. On the contrary, if, dismissing the vague ideas on cosmogony they have derived from too literal an acceptation of our necessarily imperfect translation, these timid and unwise friends of revelation will confront the Bible itself with the admitted geological facts, they will satisfy themselves that the inconsistency they have assumed is entirely fanciful. But in the first place, what reason have we to expect to find in the Bible a revelation of geological or other phenomena of natural history, wholly foreign to the object of a volume intended only to be a guide of religious belief and moral conduct? Dr. Buckland justly asks at what point short of a communication of omniscience could such a revelation have stopped, without imperfections similar in kind to that which they impute to the existing narrative of Moses? 'A revelation of so much only of astronomy as was known to Copernicus would have seemed imperfect after the discoveries of Newton; and a revelation of the science of Newton would have appeared defective to La Place: a revelation of all the chemical knowledge of the eighteenth century would have been as deficient in comparison with the information of the present day, as what is now known in this science will probably appear before the termination of another age: in the whole circle of sciences, there is not one to which this argument may not be extended, until we should require from revelation a full development of all the mysterious agencies that uphold the mechanism of the material world. Such a revelation might indeed be suited to beings of a more exalted order than mankind, and the attainment of such knowledge of the works as well as of the ways of God may perhaps form some part of our happiness in a future state; but unless human nature had been constituted otherwise than it is, the above supposed communication of omniscience would have been imparted to creatures utterly incapable of receiving it under any past or present moral or physical condition of the human race; and would have been also at variance with the design of all God's other disclosures of himself, the end of which has uniformly been not to impart intellectual but moral knowledge.'-pp. 15, 16.

Several hypotheses have been proposed with a view of reconciling the phenomena of geology with the brief account of creation which we find in Genesis. Among others, it has been plausibly enough urged that the days' of the Mosaic creation may be understood to imply, not as now a single revolution of the globe, but some other cyclic period of unknown extent. Dr. Buckland, however,

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