{"id":"01KG8AMXWE79YWH8NFXBM2Q3BQ","cid":"bafkreicktztrcsblpi6jhwsxytrl4jwrg6lnkj6qtaszdftwzqw5omhuf4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":426,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":371,"text":"Nature hath not so unbounded a sway. The grass is annually changed; but\r\nthe limbs of the oak, for a long term of years, defy that annual decree.\r\nAnd if in America the vast mass of families be as the blades of grass,\r\nyet some few there are that stand as the oak; which, instead of\r\ndecaying, annually puts forth new branches; whereby Time, instead of\r\nsubtracting, is made to capitulate into a multiple virtue.\r\n\r\nIn this matter we will--not superciliously, but in fair spirit--compare\r\npedigrees with England, and strange as it may seem at the first blush,\r\nnot without some claim to equality. I dare say, that in this thing the\r\nPeerage Book is a good statistical standard whereby to judge her; since\r\nthe compilers of that work can not be entirely insensible on whose\r\npatronage they most rely; and the common intelligence of our own people\r\nshall suffice to judge us. But the magnificence of names must not\r\nmislead us as to the humility of things. For as the breath in all our\r\nlungs is hereditary, and my present breath at this moment, is further\r\ndescended than the body of the present High Priest of the Jews, so far\r\nas he can assuredly trace it; so mere names, which are also but air, do\r\nlikewise revel in this endless descendedness. But if Richmond, and St.\r\nAlbans, and Grafton, and Portland, and Buccleugh, be names almost old as\r\nEngland herself, the present Dukes of those names stop in their own\r\ngenuine pedigrees at Charles II., and there find no very fine fountain;\r\nsince what we would deem the least glorious parentage under the sun, is\r\nprecisely the parentage of a Buccleugh, for example; whose ancestress\r\ncould not well avoid being a mother, it is true, but had accidentally\r\nomitted the preliminary rite. Yet a king was the sire. Then only so much\r\nthe worse; for if it be small insult to be struck by a pauper, but\r\nmortal offense to receive a blow from a gentleman, then of all things\r\nthe bye-blows of kings must be signally unflattering. In England the\r\nPeerage is kept alive by incessant restorations and creations. One man,\r\nGeorge III., manufactured five hundred and twenty-two peers. An earldom,\r\nin abeyance for five centuries, has suddenly been assumed by some\r\ncommoner, to whom it had not so much descended, as through the art of\r\nthe lawyers been made flexibly to bend in that direction. For not Thames\r\nis so sinuous in his natural course, not the Bridgewater Canal more\r\nartificially conducted, than blood in the veins of that winding or\r\nmanufactured nobility. Perishable as stubble, and fungous as the fungi,\r\nthose grafted families successively live and die on the eternal soil of\r\na name. In England this day, twenty-five hundred peerages are extinct;\r\nbut the names survive. So that the empty air of a name is more\r\nendurable than a man, or than dynasties of men; the air fills man's\r\nlungs and puts life into a man, but man fills not the air, nor puts life\r\ninto that.\r\n\r\nAll honor to the names then, and all courtesy to the men; but if St.\r\nAlbans tell me he is all-honorable and all-eternal, I must still\r\npolitely refer him to Nell Gwynne.\r\n\r\nBeyond Charles II. very few indeed--hardly worthy of note--are the\r\npresent titled English families which can trace any thing like a direct\r\nunvitiated blood-descent from the thief knights of the Norman. Beyond\r\nCharles II. their direct genealogies seem vain as though some Jew\r\nclothesman, with a tea-canister on his head, turned over the first\r\nchapter of St. Matthew to make out his unmingled participation in the\r\nblood of King Saul, who had long died ere the career of the Cæsar began.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKK0K9V8STV8CZ3GBYPDD","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMXWE724Z140WSJBFJA1D","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMXWE2Q0J3V2R8KGMDKYD","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:53.134Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:01.104Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}