MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 548, 16 July 1851, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

At a Privy Council held on 10th Feb., Mr. William Morns, of buaresbrook, vras piesonted to Ibe Queen, who was graciously pleased to confer the honour of knighthood upon him. Mr. James Meek, late Comptroller of the Victualling of the Navy, reccired the honour of knighthood from the Queen. Amongst the occupants of the space below the bar in the House of Commons on Friday evening duiing the debite, wera Caidinal Wiseman, the Duke of Argyle, the Bishop of Oxfoid, the Earl of Carlisle, Lord JUonteagle, and several Roman Catholic Bishops. S. M. Peto, Esq., M P., is said to have placed at the disposal of the committee of the great exhibition the munificent sum of £30,000, to be lefunded if the speculation bo successful ; but to be legauled as a donation m case the result of the project prove unfavourable. The military strength of London was to be increased by one thousand men during the months of the Industrial Exhibition. An unpoitant Wesleyan Normal Educational College is in course of erection in Ilorsefeiy Road j the building covers a space of upwards of five acres. A merchant in Hamburgh has left 6000 marks for the poor of the Jewish peisuasion in that city; and 4000 marks among tha poor of Christian benevolent institutions. The number of publications issued fiom the London Pi ess alone, during the past year, is estimated at 4,400. The Papal question contributed 180 publications dining the past month ! Works of fiction number .)00 thioughout the year —2so books on law subjec's ! 200 books on travels. Dlclinc of Royal and Noble Families. —lt has often occurred to us tloat a very interesting paper might be wntten on the rise and fall of English families. Tiuly does Dr. Borlase remailc, that •' the most lasting houses have only their seasons, more or less of n certain constitutional strength ; they have their spiing and summer sunshine glare, their wane, decline, and death." Take, for example, the Plantagenets, the Staffords, and the Nevilles, the three most illustrious names on the roll of English nobility. What race in Europe surpassed m Iloyal position, in personal achievement, our Henrys and oui 1 Edwards' and yet we find the great-great-grandson of Margaret Plantagenet, daughter and heiress of George Duke of Claience, following the craft of a cobbler at the little town of Newpoit, in Shropshire, m the year 1G37. Besides, if we were to investigate the foi tunes of many of the inheritors of the royal arms, it would soon be discovered that, *' the aspiring blood of Lancuster"had sunk into the ground. The princely stream flows at the present time through very humble veina. Among the hueal descendants of Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, sixth son of Edwaid I, king of England, entitled to quarter the io)al arms, occur Mr. Joseph Smart, of Ilalesowen, butcher, and Mr. George Wilmot, keeper of the turnpike gate at Cooper's Bank, near Dudley; and among the descendants of Thomas Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, fifth son of Edwaid 111, we may mention Mr. Stephen James Penny, the late sexton at St. George's, ll<inover Square.—BurLe\ Anecdotet of the Pet) age. HisrouicAL View o~f Cardinals of Encish Bnmi.—Since the death of Cardinal Wolsey, which, took | lace in 1530, only ten Englishmen have been raised to the dignity of Cardinal by the popes of Rome; five of whom have been created within the last twenty yeirs. They are as follows: — Fisher, in 1535; Pole, in 1536 ; i'eyto, in 1-557 ; and Allen, in 1587. There wa« then an interregnum of nearly a century, the neU Engliih Cardinal not having been made till 1G75, when Howard was created. Upwaidsof a century and a-half then elapsed before any more Englishmen, were iTea ed CcinhnJs Eiskine, Yoik, find Weld being appoiu'ed m 18J0 ; Acton, in 1842 ; and W>serain in the [>re-.ent yrar,—Sun