their followers, the chiefs naturally selected theirs. At all times the dignity of the parent reflects on his issue; among the Germans it gave the descendants of illustrious parents an hereditary consequence, and insensibly an hereditary rank; this produced the three-fold distinction, of lineage royal, lineage noble, and lineage purely free.

The first was composed of Princes, or those who claimed royal descent; the second, of Dukes, Counts, Marquises, Barons and Knights. The Knights were divided into Knights Banneret, who had the right of carrying a banner, to which fifty soldiers, at least, were attached, and Knights Batchelors, who served served under another's banner :- After the Knight, came the Esquire, who carried his shield, and he also was noble. After the Esquire, came the mere freeman.

Such was the ancient nobility of the Germans, and of the Francs, their descendants. Afterwards it was acquired, 1st, by the grant of a noble fief, or a fief which imme. morially had conferred nobility on its possessor;-2dly, by filling any of the great offices of state, or any of the great offices in the king's household, or any high office of magistracy; and, 3dly, by letters of nobility.

It should, however, be observed, that it was in early times only, that the possession of a Noble Fief conferred nobility. The Ordonance of Blois, (article 258), expressly provided, that non-nobles should not be ennobled by the acquisition of a Noble Fief.

After the extinction of the Carlovingian dynasty, Germany was partitioned by a multitude of princes, bishops, abbots, and male and female Nobles, who, under the various names of Dukes, Princes,

graves, Burgraves, Rhingraves, and other more or less known denominations, possessed the rights appropriated to sovereigns: but all of them recognized the emperor as their Feudal Lord, and all were obliged to furnish him with a certain number of soldiers. They were principally divided into the Primitive States, or those which had uniformly been held of the emperor, as the dutchies of Saxony and Bavaria, the Palatinate, and several bishoprics :-those, which arose on the ruin of the Guelphic family, in consequence of the confiscation of the possessions of Henry the lion; those, which arose from the ruins of the Suabian family;---and, those which, (principally during the long Interregnum), arose from other

causes.

3. A similar division of nobility took place in France, but, from the time of the accession of Hugh Capet to the throne of France, it was the uniform endeavour of the French monarchs to lower the territorial power and local influence of the nobility: their privileges, the French monarch always respected.

By degrees, all the great fiefs were annexed to the crown; and the inferior nobility were curtailed of their territorial power and influence.--Insensibly they became a privileged and favoured order of the state; enjoying many splendid prerogatives, but wholly dependent on the king, and subject to the law.

They were divided into three classes; the Nobles of Name and Arms,---the Nobles of Race and Extraction,---and the Ennobled.--The Nobles of Name and Arms, were those, who could prove their nobility from the time when fiets became hereditary, which in Germany was the accession of the Suabian line; in France, the accession of Hugh Capet:--The Nobles

of

of Race and Extraction were those, who could prove a century of nobility in their family;---in respect to the Ennobled, three distinctions were observed; High Offices, as those of Chancellor, or Keeper of the Seal, immediately conferred nobility on the persons to whom they were granted, and the immediate transmissibility of it to their descendants. Certain inferior of fices conferred an inchoate or intimate nobility, which, if both the son and the grandson of the party held such an office, vested a complete nobility in the grandson, and it then became transmissible to the lineage of the first grantee ;---Nobility acquired by Magistracy, was called Nobility of the Robe.

In France, and all military countries, Military Nobility stands much higher than Nobility of the Robe: the Robe did not, however, degrade the military nobleman. Consequently, a nobleman of name and arms, by filling an office of magistracy, did not lose or taint, in the slightest degree, his military nobility.

Dukes, Marquises, Counts, Viscounts and Barons, as such, were not noble. Almost always, they were of noble birth; but the King might create them from the nonnobles; and when he intended to confer such a dignity on a non-noble, he previously ennobled him. The princes of the blood were out of the line, and preceded all.

At court, and at ceremonies and assemblies, held by the officers of the crown, in that capacity, the dukes, and peers, and the hereditary dukes, had precedence; and a precedence was there allowed to the Marechaux de France, to the knights of the order of the Holy Ghost, and to those, who commanded nobility, as Governors of Provinces, and Lieutenants-General. With this single exception, all the nobility of France, whether Dukes,

Marquises, Counts, Viscounts, or Barons, were, in all respects, of the same degree.---Public opinion made a difference among them; it was founded on the antiquity of their rank, and the illustration of their families by dignities and alliances. ---Thus, in public opinion the Baron de Montmorency was, at an immeasurable space, above the Duke de Luynes; and the Count de Rieux ranked much higher than the Prince de Poix.

In England, it is often said, that, among the French, noblemen and gentlemen were convertible terms, every nobleman being a gentleman, every gentleman being a nobleman. But the expression is inaccurate ;--every French gentleman was a nobleman, but every French nobleman was not a gentleman. A person, to whom nobility was granted, or who was appointed to a charge conferring nobility, the transmissibility of which was suspended till it vested in his second descendant, was noble; but neither he nor his son was a gentleman; the grandson was the first gentleman of the family. Thus, in France, gentleman was an higher appellation than nobleman:

Francis the First, styled himself the first gentleman of his kingdom ; the king's brother, was Monsieur, the first gentleman among the subjects of the French king.

In France, trade in general, and farming the lands of another, dero gated from nobility. At any time, within a century after the first act of derogation, the derogated nobleman, unless he had been bankrupt or otherwise disgraced, might easily obtain letters of relief or rehabilitation. After that term, he could only be ennobled by a new title.

In Britanny, when a nobleman engaged in trade, his nobility was said to sleep; the instant he quitted trade, paid his debts, fulfilled all his mercantile engagements, and enter

ed

tinguished from each other by the addition of the name of the most contiguous place, might be enumerated in the eastern extremity of Strathmore; but of these only a few shall at present be mentioned. In the parish of Tannadice, presbytery and county of Forfar, there are still four artificial conical mounds called "Laws." Two of these are nearly levelled and removed; of which the largest and most remarkable is situated on a farm called " Baldoukie," the property of James Ogilvy, Esq. of Islabank. This and the other three are completely insulated, and on elevated, dry, arable fields. The occupier of the ground on which the one particularly referred to stands, being an active and enterprising farmer, began some time ago to level it, for the double purpose, of acquiring useful stones, and an additional quantity of arable surface. The perpendicular height of this law above the common sur face was nearly twenty feet, and the diameter of its base five times as much. The whole was composed of earth and stones, thrown promiscu ously together, without the least appearance of attention to arrange ment or construction. The stones differed extremely both in size and quality. Some would have required more than the strength of an ordinary man to move them; but by far the greater proportion were fit only for building ordinary dykes or filling drains. Of these various kinds, some were free stones, others whin stones and granite: but all of them might be collected from the neighbouring surface. Most of the earth was of the same appearance and quality as the soil on which the law stood, and of which it most probably was originally a part. There was indeed a stratum, of about a foot thick, containing little or no extraneous matter, or materials, dif fering from itself, and which seemed to have acquired the peculiarity

of its appearance from the influence of fire. Among this stratum of ashes, no cinders or fragments of combustible materials appeared, which most likely would have been the case, had pit-coal, or even large pieces of hard wood, been consumed. It may therefore, with probability, be inferred, that turf, furze, or broom, and not unlikely a portion of each, composed the fuel; nor had the heat of this been so intense as to vitrify, or materially alter, the appearance of the few stones found among the ashes, or in their immediate vicinity. Both above and below this stratum, there lay several feet of the common collection of earth and stones, the prin cipal component parts of the law; fifteen feet below the summit of which, and nearly five above the base, three of what are commonly called "stone coffins" were found These coffins consisted of four upright free stones, of different and unequal thickness, without any mark either of hammer or chissel, or of any artificial means having been employed to improve or alter their figure. The stones at the two opposite sides were nearly five feet long, by eighteen inches deep; those at the opposite ends were of the same depth as those at the sides, and nearly three feet long: so that the space they contained was nearly five feet by three, and eighteen inches in depth. The cover was a large coarse free stone, more than equal to the space contained by the upright stones, and, like them, unaltered by any artificial means. The bottom consisted of very coarse gravel, abounding with flinty and sparry stones, such as children, or men of childish taste, might consider as ornamental, and collect from the channel of a neighbouring stream, where many similar may still be found. Upon this gravelly bed, many fragments of human bones were found; such as teeth,

part

part of a scull, parts of the leg, arm, and thigh bone. At first their appearance was such, that even the most ignorant observer could not hesitate in referring them to his own species. But, by a few days exposure, they mouldered into dust. Most of them were, indeed, after as little exposure as possible, carefully committed to the earth, in a more secure situation. Along with the bones, two pots, or urns, were found, entire, in one of the coffins. These urns were four inches in diameter, and six in depth, and were shaped like the frustum of a cone, or very much like small barrels in which pickled oysters are packed; only they were open at the upper · end, and their contents only a little black earth or ashes. Strong clay and coarse sand, mixed, were the materials of which they were composed. Within, they were quite smooth; but without, they were coarsely checquered with serrated streaks. The heat to which they had been exposed in baking had been so great as nearly to vitrify the sand. One of them still remains entire, and is in the possession of the farmer, on whose ground it was discovered; the other is fallen to pieces. Fragments of like coarse earthen ware, and of human bones, were found, in such quantities, in the other coffins, as unequivocally to indicate their having contained articles of the same kind, although more decayed than those found in their neighbourhood.

The other of the four laws in the same parish, and mentioned as partly levelled this season (for the same reasons as the one described) although inferior to both in diameter and elevation, contained ten coffins of like description, but less by fully a third in every dimension, Numerous fragments of human bones were found in each, but no urns, or any indication of such ever having been there. On the shores of the Tay,

the banks of the South Esk, and Noran, and places remote from navigable rivers and trouting streams, many repositories of the same nature have at different times been discovered, but without any artificial accumulation, or peculiarity of name." These spots, however remote or dissimilar in situation, all coincide in being dry and gravelly, level with the common surface. It is probable, that the former were the depositories of the more, and the latter of the less, illustrious dead. Boards being formed with difficulty when both the saw and the axe are unknown, stones are made, as far as possible, to supply their place. As the bones appeared of a size proportioned to those of men in the present age, and the stone coffins of dimensions insufficient to contain them, means must have been em. ployed to reduce the size, particularly of the vulgar dead, to the di minutive proportions of the places in which they were deposited. Tras dition and writing being silent as the sepulchres concerning the process employed for this purpose, we are left, with regard to it, entirely to conjecture. But, as all men, particularly the ignorant and barbarous, have a sacred, or perhaps su→ perstitious, respect for the remains of their departed relations, it is unreasonable to suppose that they would so far deviate from this respect as to lacerate or mangle their lifeless corpses. The inconsiderable depth of the coffins must have rendered it impossible to fold up the knees towards the chin, and place the legs under the hams; and, even in this constrained posture, the greater part of the coffins were not only insufficient in depth, but also in length, to contain the bodies.None of the bones bore any marks of fire. Besides, had the bodies been burnt, urns alone would have been sufficient to contain the ashes and few remaining fragments. Are

we