rise to great place or wealth from mean originals, than their mighty solicitude to convince the world, that they are not so low as is commonly believed. They are glad to find it made out, by some strained genealogy, that they have a remote alliance with better families. Cromwell himself was pleased with the impudence of a flatterer, who undertook to prove him descended from a branch of the royal stem. I know a citizen who adds or alters a letter in his name, with every plum he acquires; he now wants only the change of a vowel[1] to be allied to a sovereign prince in Italy[2]; and that perhaps he may contrive to be done by a mistake of the graver upon his tombstone.
When I am upon this subject of nobility, I am sorry for the occasion given me to mention the loss of a person, who is so great an ornament to it, as the late lord president[3]; who began early to distinguish himself in the publick service, and passed through the highest employments of state, in the most difficult times, with great abilities and untainted honour. As he was of a good old age, his principles of religion and loyalty had received no mixture from late infusions, but were instilled into him by his illustrious father, and other noble spirits, who had exposed their lives and fortunes for the royal martyr:
Pulcherrima proles,
Magnanimi heroes nati melioribus annis.
His first great action was, like Scipio, to defend his father when opressed by numbers; and his filial
piety
