For SEPTEMBER, 1811.

A New Series.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF ILLUSTRIOUS LADIES.

The Twenty-Third Number.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SOPHIA LADY MULGRAVE.

We are led more particularly to these observations in contemplating the object. of our present biography, Sophia Baroness Mulgrave, who adds honour to that rank to which she is elevated, whilst that elevation has tended in some measure to restore the opulence and consequence of an old and respectable family from whom she sprung.

It is certainly a just, and we hope will not be considered as too national an observation, that the British nobility is the purest and best defined (technically speaking) of any in the world. We speak here of that true hereditary, legislative nobility, endowed with powers and privileges, not for themselves alone, but for the support of the discriminate rights of the various ranks in society; and not of that general term noblesse, so prevalent on the Continent of Europe: than which no two words can be more distinct in their meaning, or dis- || sonant in their application. We have already noticed, that in other countries the nobles alone bore coat armour, so that all those who bore coat armour were consider-printed collections of topography, nor have ed as noble; and, forsooth, were Barons at least thus producing in this country an overflow of soi-disant baronial foreigners, aping the consequence of our junior rank of the Peerage; whilst their birth, fortune, or attainments did not place them above the rank of our English gentry.

Lady Mulgrave is the daughter of William Maling, Esq. whose family had long been settled at West Herrington, in the parish of Houghton-le-Spring, in the county of Durham, where they had resided in great respectability; uot so elevated or so conspicuous as to be recognized in any.

we been able to trace them particularly' in manuscript records; yet sufficiently known in their own neighbourhood to be remembered with gratitude and respect.

I thus developing the origin, or delineating the character of individuals or of families, it is equally foreign to our purpose In other countries there were but the to flatter vanity, or to satiate the craving noble and ignoble, between whom the line anaw of scandal. In the present case, indrawn by ancient prejudice was (except i deed, we trust that the first would meet a very few instances) impassable; whilst with contempt where it most merits it, with us, the nobility and commons though and we know that there is no legitimate distinct in a political, are yet so inti food for the latter: we may, however, briefmately blended in a social view, that they mention, that her Ladyship's father, lines of distinction can scarcely be pointed out. With us manners and førtune, aided by birth, produce the gentleman, whom gallantry, political virtue, legal integrity, or commercial industry, may elevate to the Peerage; whilst virtue, innocence, aud beauty often place his daughters in the same rank, adding a new current to hereditary blood, as honourable, if not always

as ancient.

finding the expences of a large and increasing family entrenching on those plans of economy which he had adopted for the honourable purpose of clearing off incumbrances on the family estates, retired to the south of France during his children's infancy, from whence he and they were driven by the storm of the Revolution. Soon after this, in the year 1795, the present Lord Mulgrave led the blooming

Sophia, then only seventeen, to the Hyme-mily evidences, or the pedigree preserved neal altar; whither she had been preceded in the Herald's office, it can regularly be by her elder sister, married to Robert traced. A branch of this family, we have Ward, Esq. late one of the Lords of the reason to believe, were among the earliest Admiralty, and now at the Board of Ord- settlers from the mother country in the nance. These connections, from their po- province of New England, North Amelitical accompaniments, have been singu- rica; from this branch was descended the larly beneficial to her Ladyship's family; first recorded ancestor of the present Peer, the elder Mr. Maling holding an honour- Sir William Phipps, whose rank and disable situation under Government, whilst tinction in life proved the high respecta. one son is usefully employed in the war bility of the family in that province in the department at home, and two others gal- early part of the seventeenth century. Sir lantly serving their country abroad in the William (which title he acquired, being army and navy, knighted in 1687*), entered in early life We notice these circumstances the more into the sea service in the reign of Charles I. particularly, because it is not long since that and attained considerable rank in the navy. the spirit of party, under the semblance of He was estimable both as an officer and as a watchful economy, had endeavoured to a man, and of considerable endowments throw an odium both on the parties them- both natural and acquired. To him both selves and their patrons, by accusations of the world and his family are considerably political irregularity in some of the appoint-indebted; the first, for the useful div. ments. An impartial investigation, how-ing bell; and the latter, indeed, for the ever, before the House of Commons, which same discovery, as he was thereby enabled our readers may remember, not only scouted to lay the foundation of their present rank every charge or innuendo of undue or par- and opulence, having by its meaus recovertial influence, by proving that the ac-ed from the wreck of a Spanish galleon on cusatory circumstances were unfounded in fact, but even drew forth just tributes of praise towards some of the younger branches of the family, whose particular and distinguished services, independent of the accuracy of general routine, had fully entitled them to the rank which they held. | Of him, who could distinguish female merit, as well as admire female beauty, though not disinguished by the weightier gifts of fortune, it may be appropriate to offer a slight sketch, as well as of his family; we shall therefore mention that the family name is now Phipps, which we have reason to believe is either a provincial or trans-atlantic corruption of the ancient name of Pepys, distinguished as early as the reign of Charles II. by a gentleman who then was of essential service to his country in the civil department of the navy, and who was knighted. The family name itself is still in existence in Languedoc, in France, but the time of their settlement in England is not ascertained: it is well known, however, that they were long seated at Cottenham and Impington, in Cambridgeshire; indeed, from a period more remote than any to which by the fa

the American coast, what was then estimated almost a princely fortune. Though knighted by the unfortunate James, yet his attachment to the liberties of his country induced him to continue his services, and William's administration, soon after the Revolution, appointed him Governor of his native province. This elevated situation, however, he held but a short time, having died on the 18th February, 1694. The law possessing more charms than the paternal profession, for his sou, we find Sir Constantine Phipps high in judicial estimation in the early part of the last century, and even elevated to the diguified rank of Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1710, along with which appointment he received the honour of knighthood. The change. of ministry, however, on the death of Queen Anne, removed him from that situation, and he died in 1723, leaving an only son, William, who grafted the family on a noble stock by his marriage with Lady Catharine An

*This may by many be considered as an additional proof of the common origin of Pepys and Phipps, as at that period Samuel Pepys was then Secretary to the Admiralty.

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nesley, sole daughter and heiress of James, || year entrusted by his Majesty with the Earl of Anglesey, by Lady Catharine Seals of the Foreign Department, and soon Darnley, natural daughter of King James II. after held the office of First Lord of the (by Catharine, only daughter of Sir Charles Treasury, which he has lately resigned Sedley, Bart.) His son, Constantine, mar- for the Ordnance. ried Lepel Harvey, eldest daughter of John, By his lady he has several children, the Lord Harvey, of the present Bristol family, eldest of whom, Heury Constantine, born and was afterwards created Lord Mul-in 1797, is heir apparent to the estate grave, of the kingdom of Ireland, in 1767;|| and title. but dying in 1775, the title went to his eldest son Constantine, then a Captain in the navy. He istinguished himself much on several occasions, but particularly by his skill and perseverance in a voyage of discovery towards the North Pole, in which he demonstrated the almost certain impractibility of a shorter passage to India by that route, in the present accumulated state of the ice in those frozen regions, notwithstanding the many ridiculous reports of summer suns and vernal gales which some romantic Dutch skippers had met with at the North Pole! In the adoption of a political party, the late Lord Mulgrave became an adherent of the Pitt administration, and received not only the situation of joint Paymaster of the Forces, but was also brought into the English House of Peers, as Lord Mulgrave, of Mulgrave, in Yorkshire; but this being only to issue male, did not descend to his brother Henry, the present Peer, who succeeded to the Irish honours on his death in 1792, there being no issue but a daughter, married to the present Major-General Sir John Murray, a Scottish Baronet, and brother of the late Sir James Pulteney.

To enter at length upon a delineation of her Ladyship's private character (for much to her credit, she has sedulously avoided every thing that could render her a public one), would be in some measure, a difficult task. Vice and folly are easily pourtrayed; their outlines are strongly defined, and when filled up with those strong shades of indecorum, nay even of virtue which eccentricity can sometimes throw in, a factitious glare is produced, which, to the injudicious or to the casual observer, may appear to have a pleasing effect. But the mild lights of domestic and of social virtue, having no dark shades to give them a false relief and force them into the fore-ground, are not so susceptible of descriptive eulogium, and thus they must be closely viewed in order to appreciate their excellencies. As a mother, however, her Ladyship has shone conspicuous, and were it not from a fear that these lines in meeting her glance might excite painful feelings, we could venture to expatiate on ; but we shall wave a subject so interesting, and proceed according to our premised plan, to take a slight sketch of her family coat of arms, and to assist her female friends to emblematical virtues of her ancestors. compare her present excellencies with the

are

Henry, Lord Mulgrave, the husband of the subject of our prosent biography, was born in 1755, entered early into the army, and, we believe, sav much service, both during the American and European ConThe arms of Malyn, or Maling, which we believe to be the same name, tinental campaigns, and is now Colonel of ermine, a fesse paly of six, or and gules. the 31st regiment, and has the rank of According to the rules already noticed in Lieutenant-General on the Staff. He has our lectures on heraldry, it appears that also adhered to the politics which have al- ermine was the symbol of purity; that or ways guided his family, and having suc- || signified gentleness, clemency, and huceed his brother in the Irish Barony, was afterwards, in 1794, created an English tude of heart; that gules was emblematimility, together with constancy and rectiPeer in the same tenor as that of his cal of the more sublime virtues in morals; brother's patent. After holding, as we believe, several offices under Government, and that or accompanied by gules, signified he, in 1801, received the appointment of the youthful female, and which so sweetly a desire to conquer, a desire so laudable in the Lancastrian Chancellorship; was next subsides into constancy in a wedded state!