Toiling for years to reach the good they sought,
They gained too much to deem it dearly bought;
Thus nobly earned, and won immortal fame,
Leaving their works to prove how just their claim.
They wrote not books to live their little day,
And pass like summer butterflies away;
Whose gaudy covers, like the insect's wing,
Soon lose the gold, but keep the serpent's sting:
Better for some, as butterflies to pass,

Than hide that sting, like serpent in the grass!
With flow'ry language and seductive phrase,
Beguiling youth from virtue and her ways;
Robbers and murderers as heroes shine,
And vice is worshipp'd as a thing divine:
Guilt well disguised assumes fair virtue's face,
And "nature's laws" miscalled "the law of grace ;'
Alas for them! may Heav'n avert their doom!
When called to meet the horrors of the tomb!
What hope for those whose sacrilegious hand,
Spread foul contagion o'er their native land!
One hope remains, as little boys at play,
Delight in bubbles, bright with colours gay;
Ev'n while they gaze, the shadows melt in air,
And soon they wonder why they thought them fair;
And thus shall perish each ephemeral thing,
That soars aloft on fashion's airy wing!

Alas! it is a fearful crime to write

Such works as only dazzle and excite;
Rousing young passion from its peaceful sleep,
To

rage like storms that swell the troubled deep : While infidelity, with serpent care,

Fascinates the victims caught in vice's snare,

MRS. SOMERS.

THE CRAWFORD PEERAGE.

IN 1808, George Crawfurd, twentieth Earl of Crawfurd, died without issue. His two brothers, Robert Lindsay Hamilton, and Bute Lindsay, had previously died without issue. Of his two sisters, the Lady Jean, who was Countess of Eglinton, predeceased him many years; and the Lady Mary Lindsay Crawfurd, who was born about 1760, survived her brother.

To the ancient Earldom of Crawford, conferred so far back as 1398, there were annexed large estates in Ayrshire, Fifeshire, and elsewhere ; and as there was a very general belief that a male heir to the honours and possessions somewhere existed, our readers will not wonder that several persons of the name of Crawford began to examine their pedigrees, in the hope of establishing a claim to the prize now rendered vacant by the death of the twentieth Earl.

Before we allude to the claimants, it will be right to give a brief sketch of the family pedigree.

The family name of the Earls of Crawfurd was originally Lindsay; and so continued until the eldest line became extinct on the death of John Lindsay, eighteenth Earl of Crawford, in London, without issue, on the 25th December, 1749.

The title then reverted to Lord Viscount Garnock, who was descended from Earl John's grand-uncle, the Hon. Patrick Lindsay, second son of the fifteenth Earl.

This Hon. Patrick Lindsay had married Margaret Crawfurd, daughter and heiress of Sir John Crawfurd of Kilbirnie in Ayrshire, by whom the estates of Kilbirnie came into the family. The descendants of that marriage (which took place on the 27th December, 1664) all bore the surname of Crawfurd.

Thus, when the Earldom of Crawfurd passed into the Garnock line in 1749, the family name and the title became, for the first time, identical.

After the death of George, the twentieth Earl, in 1808, a Mr. John Crawford, residing near Castledawson, in the county of Derry, in Ireland, bethought him of certain traditions that seemed to authenticate his connexion with the Earl's family.

He amassed a large amount of very plausible parole evidence, much of which was undoubtedly true; and of which the bearing seemed so favourable to his claim that Lord Brougham (then at the bar) and other very eminent lawyers, were of opinion that he was the true heir to the earldom.

A commission was duly issued, and aged witnesses deposed-1stly. That the last Lord Crawford had expressed his belief that the heir to his honours would be found in Ireland; and 2dly. That the claimant's greatgrandfather, one James Crawfurd, had lived at Castledawson as bailiff or land-steward, and that the popular belief had ascribed to this man (who died in 1769, at Anaghmore, near Castledawson) some connexion with the Earl of Crawford's family.

There was no doubt that the claimant's great-grandfather was one James Crawford; the pinch of his case was to identify the James in question (who held the humble situation of land-steward) with the Honourable James Crawford, third son of John, first Viscount Garnock.

To account for the degrading position of the Viscount's son, it was alleged that he was obliged to fly from Scotland into Ireland, in or about 1719, to escape the consequences of having killed an opponent unfairly in a duel. Of course, the more humble and obscure his situation in Ireland, the more complete his disguise. The tradition of a Crawfurd of the Kilbirnie family having sought shelter and privacy under some such circumstances at Castledawson, was vouched for by members of the Dawson family, of unimpeachable integrity.

So far, one important difficulty appeared to be cleared away.

Lady Mary Lindsay Crawfurd became seriously alarmed. The claimant appeared to make such a plausible case, that she began to fear she should ultimately have to surrender to him the princely possessions of which she was life rentrix.

She, however, ascertained, by much labour and research, that her grand-uncle, the Hon. James Crawfurd, so far from having been Baron Dawson's bailiff at Castledawson, had never been in Ireland in his life. It is proverbially hard to prove a negative; yet the evidence her ladyship produced of this negation, seems perfectly irrefragible. For the Hon. James Crawfurd had held public situations in Scotland, requiring his constant presence and occasional signature; he had been personally exposed to the censure of the presbytery; he had been defendant in a lawsuit at Edinburgh, of all which transactions the proofs are to be found in the public and judicial records of the country; and the events thus authenticated all occurred during precisely the period when the claimant represented him as having lain perdû in Ireland.

From Scotland he is traced to London, where he died in 1744; as the entry of his burial in the church books of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields fully testifies.

Thus, it is clearly impossible that the Hon. James Crawfurd can have been identical with his namesake, the claimant's great-grandfather; who died in 1769, in the county Derry, as the claimant's own witnesses deposed; and who certainly did not combine the incompatible functions of a skulking land-steward to an Irish estate, and a public official in Scotland.

The story of the unfair duel, and the flight to Ireland, to escape its results, is probably true, but referable to another member of the Crawfurd family; perhaps to Archibald Crawford, a captain in the Army, who, there is reason to believe, was in Ireland about the period specified. Archibald was uncle to the Hon. James, and brother of the first Viscount Garnock of Kilbirnie. He died without issue in 1736.

The House of Lords dismissed the claim of Mr. John Crawfurd (or, as he styled himself, John Lindsay Crawford) on the production of the entry

proving that the Hon. James Crawfurd was interred at Saint-Martin's-inthe-Fields in 1744.

The discomfited claimant attacked the authenticity of that entry, and pronounced it to be a forgery. He does not appear to the present writer to have done so on sufficient grounds. But had he even established his accusation on this point, still it seems clear enough that James the Irish bailiff was not James the Viscount's son. We must, however, concede, that the claimant demonstrated that he was, somehow, allied to the Earl's family; but whether illegitimately or otherwise does not appear; and he utterly failed in investing himself with the character of heir.

The reader will remember that we have already stated that the Hon. Patrick Lindsay, younger son of the fifteenth Earl of Crawfurd, married, in December, 1664, Margaret Crawford, the heiress of Kilbirnie. Of that marriage there were issue,

1. John Crawfurd, first Viscount Garnock, born 12th May, 1669. 2. Patrick Crawfurd, who d. 1716.

3. Captain Archibald Crawfurd, already mentioned.

4. Charles Crawfurd, who d. 1699.

5. Margaret Crawfurd, m. the Earl of Glasgow, and was ancestress of the present Glasgow family.

6 Anne, the wife of H. Maule Esq.; and

7. Magdalene, wife of Dundas of Duddingstone.

The descendants of John, first Viscount Garnock, having failed by the death of the last Earl of Crawfurd without issue in 1808, the Rev. Doctor Crawfurd, a clergyman of the established church, residing in Dublin, set up a claim to the peerage, as being the great-grandson of Patrick Crawfurd, younger brother of Lord Garnock; who, it is alleged, came to Ireland and married a Miss Nangle. This marriage rests upon the evidence of oral tradition; but there seems no reason to doubt it; for the witnesses are persons of unimpeachable character; and the generation is not so remote from the Rev. claimant (being only the fourth) as to render an accurate retention of the particulars either difficult or improbable. But church-books were at that time so irregularly kept in Ireland, and in many parishes not kept at all, that documentary evidence is often unattainable.

What seems to corroborate the probability that Patrick Crawfurd left issue, is the following entry in the Scots Magazine for the year 1740, "Died, July, 1740, Joseph Crawfurd, Esq., nephew to the late Viscount Garnock, lately returned from his travels.""

And in the "Daily Post" newspaper for July 9, 1740, there is the following passage: "Yesterday, died, in the 25th year of his age, at his lodgings at Brompton, the Hon. Joseph Crawford, Esq., nephew to the late Lord Viscount Garnock, a gentleman lately arrived from his travels, in order to take possession of a plentiful estate."

From a careful collation of the date of Joseph's birth (which, from the above extract, must have been 1715) with the dates of the births, deaths, and marriages of his own and the preceding generation, it is demonstrable that he must (to have been the nephew of the Viscount Garnock who in 1740 was termed "the late Viscount") have been the son of one or other

of that nobleman's three brothers, Patrick, Archibald, or Charles. The present writer believes that Archibald is admitted to have died unmarried; Charles died a mere lad in 1699; and there only remains Patrick, who is alleged, on most respectable oral authority, to have married Miss Nangle; and be it observed that the contemporaneous record we have quoted, goes to shew that one, at all events, of Lord Garnock's brothers married and left issue.

In 1842 an inquiry was set on foot, on behalf of a certain Mr. William Crawford (who died in the course of the same year, leaving issue two sons, William Henry and Charles) in order to ascertain if any evidence was attainable in support of a family tradition that derived his descent from the Earls of Crawfurd. The disjecta membra of his information were as follows:

HENRY CRAWFORD, Esq. (alleged by oral tradition to have been the son of a Scotch officer in King William's army, who fell at the Boyne) married Elizabeth, daughter of Archdeacon Jasper Brett, who was Chancellor of the Diocese of Down. Henry entered the army at an early age; and on the 22d July, 1715, was appointed to the commission of Captain in the 9th Dragoons. The record of that appointment is at the War Office. By his marriage with Miss Brett he left three sons:

1. Henry, who m. a Miss Buckley, and whose issue are exhausted.
2. NICHOLAS, who m. a Miss Jane Atkinson, and who was barrack-
master of Philipstown and Tullamore from 1756 till his death
in 1808.

3. John, born in 1734, who m. Jane, sister of Sir Richard Borough,
baronet, and who was a captain in the 26th, or Cameronian
Regiment. He was subsequently Mayor of Chichester, in Eng-
land, where he d. in 1817, leaving issue the present John Leslie
Crawford, Esq., of Grange, near Moy, co. Tyrone.

NICHOLAS (the second son of the elder Henry) left, amongst other issue* by his wife Miss Atkinson, a son WILLIAM, who married in 1788 a Cornish lady named Tretallack, by whom he had two sons, WILLIAM (the proposed claimant, who d. in 1842) and Richard; and one daughter, Catherine, unmarried.

*The issue of NICHOLAS CRAWFORD, who reached maturity, were,

1. Henry, who m. Miss Matilda Briscoe, of the King's County, and d. in 1813, in Tullamore, leaving no issue.

2. Thomas, a barrister, who m. first, Miss Du Croq, of a French Huguenot family. He m. secondly, Mrs. Barry, the celebrated actress. He left no male issue by either lady.

3. WILLIAM, who m. in 1788 Miss Jane Tretallack of Cornwall, by whom he had (as stated in the text) two sons, WILLIAM and Richard, and a dau. Catherine. He d. at Cheltenham in 1824.

4. Catherine, b. the 16th September 1753, m. 1777, Rev. Thomas Wilson, D.D., S.F.T.C.D., and Rector of Ardstraw, co. Tyrone. She d. in Feb. 1835.

5. Jane, d. unmarried in 1821.

6. Elizabeth, m. Captain John Stacpoole, of Newtown Stacpoole, co. Clare. She d. in 1843, leaving no issue.