GEORGE'S GENEALOGICAL TABLES.*

THE utility of such a work as Genealogical Tables prepared for the companionship of Modern History must be so generally admitted, that our remarks need scarcely go beyond criticising its shortcomings and suggesting some improvements. It is so important, that a work of this nature should be accurate and well arranged, not only as being a sort of authoritative text-book to a comprehensive history, but also a source to which the inquirer may turn for assistance, that no excuse is needed for pointing out defects which elsewhere it might be hypercritical to notice.

It is somewhat strange that the want of a handy set of genealogies should have been allowed to remain so long =supplied, for they really are to history almost what maps are to geography. They can contain, of course, nothing new in the shape of actual information,

• Genealogical Tables Illustrative of Modern History. By Hereford B. George, F.R.G.S. Oxford and London : Macmillan and Co. 1874. but their contents being distributed over the whole area of history, their merit rests in a judicious selection and arrangement of the genealogies as best adapted for the purposes of modern history. English histories hitherto have contained only English pedigrees, omitting almost always to show in a tabular form the alliances by marriage with the families of European States ; and so also the his- tories of distinct periods or individual reigns, worked out by various authors, only contained genealogies sufficient to illustrate their one section of history. Other Genealogical Tables have been published, but we know of none that may rival these in their useful and con- venient form. There is Betham's work, which gives the pedigrees of all mankind, from Noah to the royal nobility of England, invaluable for occasional reference, but so bulky as to require a table for itself; whilst pedigrees like those in Haydn's Dictionary of Biography are too superficial and list-like to be of much value.

Mr. George says that these Tables, being intended for historical study, omit many names which will be found in complete genealo- gies, such as those of children who died young, and occasionally of wives taken from obscure families. It may not, perhaps, be necessary to insert the names of children who died young, but it would have been as well to fix some limit of age before excluding them in toto, for we notice in one place that James, Count of La Marche, is represented as having no children, but it is generally supposed he left- a daughter, who lived at least long enough to secure a husband. But we cannot admit that it was unnecessary to include the names of wives taken from obscure families, for their offspring very often turned out to be anything but 'obscure,' and in such cases it would be a natural wish to trace the descent on the mother's side, as well as on the father's. Mr. George has gone even beyond this, and in more than one case where a second wife has been omitted on account of her obscurity, has made it appear that the children were by the first wife, instead of by the second. In other cases, where a man has been married twice, the name of neither wife is given, so that we are led to the conclusion either that the children, like Topsy, never had a mother, or that they were all born of one and the same mother ; and there is, consequently, no clue to show the family, on their mother's side, from which these children sprang. For instance, Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland, is repre- sented as having married Joan, daughter of John of Gaunt, but it is not shown that he had been previously married to Margaret Stafford, by whom he had several children ; nor is it shown that his (second) wife, Joan, had been previously married to Robert Fellers, by whom likewise there were children. In fact, a younger son of this Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland (by his first wife), was married to a younger daughter of Joan (by her first husband). Again, Prince Henry, who was killed at Viterbo in 1271, was the son of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, not by his second wife Sanchia, but by his first wife, Isabel Marshal, daughter of the Earl of Pembroke. There is no mention whatever of Edward IV.'s three daughters, Cicely, Anne, and Katherine, all of whom married and had children ; so, too, Geoffrey and Arthur Pole, elder brothers of the famous Cardinal Pole, are omitted,—and they likewise married and had children.

We observe that Mr. George does' not, in certain instances where he might and ought to do so, show at a glance the actual relationship between, we will say, the children of the third or fourth generation of the Sovereign he is tabulating. We hold it an invariable rule that the horizontal lines representing each gene- ration should be equidistant. The unfailing observance of this matter is of great assistance, in enabling one to see at once the degree of relationship between the several descendants in each generation, and it would be a still greater help to the eye if these parallel lines were drawn darker. This has been well attended to in the genealogical tables which are prefixed to the State Papers of Henry VILL's reign.

It is so essential that the eye should catch without effort the actual names in each pedigree, that we think it well to omit everything except the name itself and the date of death ; should it be desirable to associate a name with some particular incident, a small red figure might refer the reader to a note in the margin (as Mr. George has done in some instances), and where a second title may be required to indicate who's who, or where a marriage is shown and the name of the wife's father added, such additions should be in red ink and smaller type. Mr. George is too fond of putting in memoranda underneath the names to strengthen identification, and consequently his Tables are too crowded. Such remarks as "Renounced his claim to the throne," "Grand Master of Teutonic Order," "Turned Mahommedan," &c., are quite superfluous. Mr. George evidently anticipated some exception to be taken to his mode of spelling proper names, for he inserts the following explanation in his preface. "In respect of spelling, I have followed in general the common English usage, believing that to be the course most likely to render the Tables useful to students.

But for English names before the Norman Conquest, I have adopted, without alteration, the authority of Lappenberg ; while in the French Tables it seemed pedantic to write Lewis and Jane, since English usage is not decisive against Louis, and historians in general use the form of Jeanne." We have no objection to raise against the latter argument, and indeed wish Mr. George had observed it in other than the French Tables ; why, for instance, in the Tables where the connection is shown between the Royalfamilies of Spain and France, should the spelling appear as Lewis of Spain, but Louis of France? So,too,with regard to Jeanne,in the French Tables; if Mr. George prefers that spelling to Jane, why does he not write, on the same page, Marie, and Isabelle, and Louise, in preference to

Mary, Isabella, and Louisa ? He even puts Margaret for Mar-

guerite. Perhaps we ought rather to ask why, if he is so bent on Anglicising names we are accustomed to see in French dress, he should make an exception in favour of Jeanne, and then defend_ himself by saying that "historians in general use the form 'Jeanne," whilst, at the same time, he is so vacillating as to insert in the French table showing the descendants of Hugh Capet a still further variety in the spelling,—thus, Jane, heiress of Toulouse ; Jeanne and Joanna, of Orleans. Before quitting the subject of spelling, we must protest against Buceleuch being persistently written Buccleugh ; it is not correct, and there is no authority for it. And what excuse can there be for writing Mahoramedan ?' In the Bourbon Table, the arrangement is such that the Duke d'Eng- Men, who was murdered in 1804, appears to be the son of Louis, Duke of Condd, who died in 1686. In the Valois Table, the addition of but two names would have shown the cousinship of Henri IV. with Marguerite de Valois, and rendered the group- ing complete. Marguerite de Valois was the grand-daughter of Francis I., and Henri IV. was the grandson of Francis L's sister, Marguerite ; but as the table stands here, the descent of Mar- guerite de Valois is traced on both sides from Philip "VI., whilst her husband is made to drop from nowhere in particular, when, by simply inserting the names of his parents, his descent, and the connection with his wife's family, might have been shown also. In like manlier, there is an omission in the Spanish Table (Hapsburgs and Bourbons), which might have been readily sup- plied, and which would have borne some interest just now ; we mean the descent of Don Carlos and Don Alphonso. Mr. George has stopped short in the pedigree on reaching their father's name, and made no mention of the pretender who has been so prominent of late.

To the names of Sovereigns, Mr. George has added the dates. of accession and of death ; to those of others, only the date of death; but as this is as often omitted as not, we are at a loss. to understand the whim that inserted them in one place and, not in another. There are, too, some careless mistakes or misprints in dates.

Henry IV. died in 1413, not in 1412.

The battle of Bosworth Field was fought in 1485, not in 1415.

Thomas, Earl of Kent, was beheaded in 1400, not in 1480; he was succeeded by his brother Edmund (ignored by Mr. George), who died in 1407, when the title became extinct.

Egbert, the first sole monarch of England, began his reign as such in 827, not in 802.

Arthur, son of Geoffrey, and nephew of King John, died in 1202 or 1203, not in 1213; whilst Geoffrey himself died in 1186, and not in 1182, as we find in Table 111., nor in 1196, as-in Table XXVI.

These errors are unpardonable in a work of this kind.

If we have been able to detect so many shortcomings in our necessarily partial examination of this work, it is not unreasonable

to suppose there are others that have escaped our notice, and con- sequently, we cannot repose in it all that confidence which we should like to give to a work whose appearance we were glad to welcome. Its want has been so long felt, that people will hasten to secure a copy, 'without inquiring too closely into its absolute accuracy. With all shortcomings, it remains a useful and a handy work, and for ordinary purposes it may fulfil its mission ; but to those who desire to base their history on a strong founda- tion, we would advise them to procure confirmatory evidence, before trusting too implicitly to these Tables.