admirers of the late Premier, to trace the long line of his ancestry, be it recollected, that the Perceval family originally sprung from Robert, a younger son of Eudes, Sovereign Duke of Brittany. Having been transplanted into Normandy, they were possessed of the Castle of Yvery at the Conquest, and invested with the office of hereditary butler of the duchy. Two of the family, Robert and Roger de Yvery, accompanied William I. to England: from the former of these, the late Earl of Egimont was supposed to have been descended. The latter of them, with one Richard D'Oily, another invader, afterwards mutually divided between them several of the English estates, obtained either by marriage or by the sword.

Ascelin Gouel, called also Gouel de Percheval and Gouel de Yvery, was surnamed Lupus, whence the English title of Lovel was taken; he engaged in the petty wars of Normandy, in consequence of a quarrel with the Earl of Breteuil, who wished to punish his younger brother William, for ravishing a woman at Pacey, a town belong ing to him.

Robert, his eldest son, in 1119, took arms against King Henry I. with other malcontents, and was deprived of his lordship of Yvery in consequence of his rebellion, after which he remained a loyal subject.

His next brother, William Gouel de Percheval, surnamed also Lupellus, or the Lit the Wolf, who inherited the lordship of Yvery, engaged in arms against the king: but his party being beaten at the battle of Thurold, he was taken prisoner by a pea, sant, whom he bribed with his arms to let him escape. Having been shaved, he reached the banks of the Seine, where, being destitute of money, he was obliged to give his shoes to the boatman, in consequence of which he returned home barefooted. It was he who afterwards completed the castle of Kary, in Somersetshire, and, with other barons, armed it against King Stephen.

To him succeeded Henry Lupellus, and his brother William, whose nick-name was softened into Lovel. The son of the latter, John, second Lord Lovel, was summoned to Bristol, in the 41st of Henry III. to attend the king into Wales; and John, third

Lord Lovel of Tichmarsh, was summoned to Parliament in the 28th of Edward II.

John, Lord Lovel, seventh of that name, was a Knight of the Garter; and was first with the barons against the king, and afterwards with the king, against the barons! He was the first of the family employed by Richard II. who, as mentioned before, sent him twice to Ireland.

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Francis, Lord Lovel and Holland, also perceiving that his father had lost considerably by his attachment to the house of Lancaster, courted the favour of the house of York, and in the 22d of Edward IV. was created a Viscount, appointed Lord Cham berlain of the Household, Constable of the Castle of Wallingford, and Chief Butler of England. He afterwards fled from the battle of Bosworth, and went to Ireland in the service of Lambert Simnel, the counterfeit Duke of York, for which he was attainted in the reign of Henry VII.

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The male branch of the family, however, was still continued by William, Lord Lovel of Morley, till his son Henry, being killed at Dixmude, it became extinct: on this

Alice, his sister, succeeded to the Baronies, &c., which, together with the hereditary office of Lord Marshal of Ireland, she conveyed to her husband, Sir William Parker, Knight, Lord Morley in her right. Their lineal descendant and sole male heir was Sir Philip Parker à Morley Long, Baronet; whose sister, Catherine Parker, became the wife of John, first Earl of Egmont, and mother to the late Earl.

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Richard Perceval, Lord of Sydenham, born in 1551, was a man of extraordinary parts, which, in the early portion of his life, were equalled at least by his indiscretion; -but having become accidentally acquainted with Lord Burleigh, he employed him in * several important transactions; and it was he who decyphered a dispatch from the court of Spain, giving the first regular intimation of the Armada. Her Majesty, Queen EliSzabeth, on this account, nominated Richard Perceval Secretary to the Court of Wards in England; and he was sent to Ireland twice, with the view of extending its powers there. In 1616 he was nominated Registrar of that Court. His son, Sir Philip, succeeded him, and obtained a reversionary

grant of his office, with his father's estates, estimated at £4000 per annum, besides £60,000 in stock, &c.;

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This knight sided with Charles I. and lost nearly the whole of his fortune during the troubles; but when no longer able to oppose the Parliament with success, he yielded to the stream of power and opinion: for in 1641-2 he was appointed Commissary-General of the Irish army, with a salary of £3 7s. 6d. per day. In 1642, being Providore-General of the Horse, he began to be considered at Oxford as a "round-head;" and in 1644, accepting the offers made him by Pym and Holles, he became a member of the Rump or Long Parliament; and, dying in 1647, was buried by the order, and at the expence of that body.

Sir John Perceval, his eldest son, having acquired the esteem of Henry Cromwell, this obtained for him a restoration of his estates; and as he had profited by all former: changes, with one single exception, so on the Revolution he was created a baronet.

In 1662 he was restored to the place of Registrar of the Court of Wards, and suc cessively to other places of honour and emo