The majority of men are so much occupied now-a-days with the present and the future, that they are unwilling to cast a glance upon the past. It seems a matter of little importance to them that even the very names of families, the members of which played a busy part in the history of their country, should die out unnoticed and uncared for. Yet it would not surely be so if we were better aware how much of interest lies in the story of the lives and careers of some of the