Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 1.djvu/20

 X COMPLETE PEERAGE rule, authorities have only been given where the statements seem Ukely to be doubted or where they conflict with accounts previously given by writers of standing. In many cases a reference to the original English or Scottish Records (now available) has been substituted for notes referring to Dugdale, Douglas, Courthope, or other Peerage writers. As this work is concerned rather with the history of the peerage than with the events of the moment, it has been thought well to exclude from this edition any account of persons who have become peers, whether by succession or creation, since the death of Queen Victoria, an event which practically synchronizes with the close of the 19th century. Thus a definite point of termination has been secured which will be the same through all the volumes. In the notes, the editor has allowed himself a free hand. " Quidquid agunt homines nostri est farrago libelli. " NOTES Many of them will be found to contain passages from Swift, Hervey, Walpole, Macky, and other such writers, whose crisp epigrammatic style lends itself readily to quotation; but it should be borne in mind that (whether flattering or the reverse), these nearly contemporary comments are largely coloured by political or personal prejudice, truth being often sacrificed to smartness. If, however, not merely the unfairness but the triviality of some of these sketches should be urged against them, the defence of Francis Osborn (in his Queen Elizabeth) seems applicable, who remarks — " Neither can I apprehend it a greater folly in me to register the yellownesse of Queen Anne's hair with other levities, which may seem pertinent to posterity though trivial now, yet of as high concernment as Cassar's nose. " Anyone who reads this part of the work will go " from grave to gay, from lively to severe, " and, as the fancy takes him, may turn from the canonized Earl of the 14th to the bigamous Baron of the 19th century. He may learn who were the Scottish nobles slain at Flodden, or discover how two noble ladies were locked up in " the Cage " for being drunk and disorderly. The present Editor would certainly not have tried unassisted to draw the " bow of Ulysses, " but he has been ACKNOW- fortunate in securing not only, as he would LEDGMENTS confidently have expected, the constant advice and assistance, dating back now for many years, of G.E.C, the " onlie begetter " of this work, but also of those