domain according in every respect with his dignity. This was the territory of St. Assize, at a pleasant distance from Paris, abounding in game of different species, and rich in all the luxuriant embellishments of nature. The mansion was fit for the brother of a king; it contained three hundred beds. The value of such an estate was too considerable to be expected in one payment; she therefore agreed to discharge the whole of the sum demanded, which was fifty-five thousand pounds, by instalments. The purchase, on the part of the Duchess, was a good one. It afforded not only game, but rabbits in plenty; and, finding them to be of superior quality and flavour, the duchess, during the first week of her possession, had as many killed and sold as brought her three hundred guineas. At Petersburg she had been a distiller of brandy, and now, at Paris, she turned

rabbit merchant.

Such was her situation, when, one day, while she was at dinner, her servants received the intelligence that judgment respecting the house near Paris had been awarded against her. The sudden communication of the news produced an agitation of her whole frame. She flew into a violent passion, and burst an internal bloodvessel; even this, however, she appeared to have surmounted, until a few days afterwards, when, preparing to rise from her bed, a servant who had long been with her endeavoured to dissuade her from it. The duchess addressed her thus:

"I am not very well, but I will rise."

On a remonstrance being attempted, she said— "At your peril, disobey me; I will get up and walk about the room; ring for the secretary to assist me."

She was obeyed, dressed, and the secretary entered the chamber. The duchess then walked about, complained of thirst, and said

"I could drink a glass of my fine Madeira, and eat a slice of toasted bread. I shall be quite well afterwards; but let it be a large glass of wine.”

The attendant reluctantly brought, and the duchess drank, the wine. She then said

"I am perfectly recovered-I knew the Madeira would do me good. My heart feels oddly. I will have another glass.

The servant here observed, that such a quantity of wine in the morning might intoxicate rather than benefit. The duchess persisted in her orders, and, the second glass of Madeira being produced, she drank that also, and pronounced herself to be charmingly indeed. She then walked a little about the room, and afterwards said

"I will lie down on the couch; I can sleep, and after that I shall be entirely recovered.”

She seated herself on the couch, a female having hold of each hand. In this situation she soon appeared to have fallen into a sound sleep, until the women felt her hands colder than ordinary, and the duchess was found to have expired as the wearied labourer sinks into the arms of rest. Thus died, on the 28th of August, 1788, at the age of sixty-eight, the celebrated Elizabeth Chudleigh, Duchess of Kingston.

To use Mr. Pope's words, she may be said to have been fair to no purpose, artful to no end, and, though not without lovers in her youth, yet certainly in her old age without a friend. Neither her sex, her rank, her riches, nor at last her reverend age, seems to have been sufficient to ward off contempt and neglect.

TRADITIONS OF HERALDRY.

MUCH curious traditional and historical information is associated with the origin and assumption of armorial bearings. The singular cognizances used as crests, the peculiar charges on the shield, and the pointed allusive mottoes recall, in many instances, the achievements of some renowned ancestor, and perpetuate, in others, some remarkable event or illustrious alliance. The cross, the crescent, and the escallop, are the symbols of the Crusaders; the red and the white roses commemorate the wars of York and Lancaster; and the crown and the oak-tree indicate the loyalty of those to whom King Charles II. owed his preservation. We will instance a few of the arms, crests, and mottoes, the derivation of which may be traced to some interesting exploit or wellfounded tradition:

In the reign of Kenneth III., about the year 980, the Danes, having invaded Scotland, were encountered by that Prince near Longcarty, in Perthshire: the Scots at first gave way, and fled through a narrow pass, where they were stopped by a countryman of great strength and courage, and his two sons, with no other weapons than the yokes of their ploughs: upbraiding the fugitives for their cowardice, he succeeded in rallying them; the

battle was renewed, and the Danes totally discomfited. It is said that, after the victory was achieved, the old man lying on the ground, wounded and fatigued, cried: "HAY! HAY!" which word became the surname of his posterity. Tradition further relates that the king, as a reward for the signal service rendered, gave the aged husbandman as much land in the Carse of Gowrie as a falcon should fly over before it settled; and that the bird being accordingly let off, passed over an extent of ground six miles in length, afterwards called ERROL, finally alighting on a stone, still named Falkinstone. The same authority also asserts that Kenneth assigned three shields or escutcheons for the arms of the family, to intimate that the father and his two sons had been the three fortunate shields of Scotland. For ever after, even unto the present day, the great northern house of Hay, ennobled under the titles of ERROL, TWEEDDALE, and KINNOUL, bears for Arms, "Arg., three escutcheons gu.;" for Crest, "a falcon rising ppr.," and for Motto, "Serva jugum."

There is an instance recorded of four Esquires taking the arms of Lord AUDLEY. When the battle of Poictiers was over, Edward the Black Prince embraced him, and said: "Sir James, both I myself, and all others, acknowledge you, in the business of this day, to have been the best doer in arms; wherefore, with intent to furnish you the better to pursue the wars, I retain you for ever my Knight, with five hundred marks yearly revenue, which I shall assign you out of my inheritance in England.” This was, then, a great estate, and Lord Audley (whom St. Palaye calls d'Endelée) was well pleased, for he knew the value of so generous a donation; yet he divided it amongst his four Squires,

DELVES, DUTTON, HAWKESTONE, and FOULTHURST, and, at the same time, gave them permission to bear his own achievement (which was gules, a fret or) in consideration of the good services they had that day done him. They, accordingly, assumed his arms, but bore them with some difference from his; for Dutton bore gules, a fret argent, as we see in the arms of Dutton, Lord Sherborn; and Foulthurst bore gules, fretty argent. When Edward found how he had rewarded his four Squires, who had never left him once during the battle, he not only confirmed the grant to them, but settled on the noble Knight a further pension of six hundred marks. This was confirmed to him by the King, for the term of his life, and for a twelvemonth after his death, to be received out of the Stannaries in Cornwall, and out of the Prince's lands in that county.

The CHENEYS possess the following traditional account of the origin of their crest:-Sir John Cheney, of Sherland, an eminent soldier under the banner of the Earl Richmond, at Bosworth, personally encountering King Richard, was felled to the ground by the monarch, had his crest struck off, and his head laid bare: for some time, it is said, he remained stunned; but recovering after awhile, he cut the skull and horns off the hide of an ox which chanced to be near, and fixed them upon his head, to supply the loss of the upper part of his helmet; he then returned to the field of battle, and did such signal service, that Henry, on being proclaimed King, assigned Cheney for crest, the "bull's scalp," which his descendants still bear. Whatever may be the credence given to this story, certain it is that Sir John Cheney was most instrumental in the successful issue of