Darions Origins.

Colonist, Issue 20, 29 December 1857, Page 4

Darions Origins.

v OF THE HOUSE OF RUSSELL.

The Russell family may date the era of their greatness ito a violent storm, which happened about year 1500, on the coast of Dorset, a county which appears to have been the birthplace of their ancestors, one of whom was Constable of Corfe Castle, in the year 1221. Philip, Archduke of Austria, son of the Emperor Maximiliam being on a voyage to Spain, was obliged by the fury of a sudden tempest to. take refuge in the harbour of Weymouth. He was received on shore and accommodated by Sir ;Thos. Trenchard, who invited his relation * Mr. John Russell to wait upon the Archduke. Philip was so much pleased with the polite, manners and cultivated talents of Mr. Russell, who was conversant with both the Erehch and German languages,-that on arriving at court, he recommended him to the noitce o£ Henry VII., who immediately sent for him to his place, where he remained in great favour till the King's death. In the estimation of Henry VIII. he rose still higher. By, that monarch he was made Lord Warden of the Stannaries, Lord Admiral of England and Ireland, Knight of the Garter, and Lord Privy Seal, and on the 9th of March, 1538, created Baron "Russell,' of Cheneys, in the country of Bucks, which estate he

afterwards acquired by marriage. At the coronation of Edward VL he officiated as Lord High Steward; and two years afterwards, in the year 1549, was created Earl of Bedford. He died in 1554, and was ■buried at Cheneys, were many of his descendants have also been interred, &c. OF REFLECTING LIGHTHOUSES. In the last century, at a meeting of a society of mathematicians at Liverpool, one of the members proposed to lay a wager, that he would read a paragraph of a newspaper, at ten yards' distance with the light of a farthing candle. The wager was laid, and the proposer, having covered the inside of a wooden dish with pieces of look-ing-glass, fastened in white glazier's '•-. putty placed his reflector behind the candle, and won his wager. One of the company marked this experiment with a philosophic eye. This was Captain Hutchinson, the dockmaster, with whom originated; the first reflecting lighthouse, erected'at in 1763. -. " ■■".■■-■ -r;" ;.,-.:oac. .■. ■.-?, '. OF THiS KILKENNY CATS. JJi; •■ -ir The story generally told is, that two ;©f those animals fought in a sawpit with su^ch ferocious determination^^ that, ; ;^e#:shej battle was over, nothing could.b^'founcl reniaming of .either: cdmbatant except his tail—the marvellous inference to be drawii therefrom being, of course, that- they had devoured each other. This ludicrous anecjy dote has, no doubt, been generally^ looked upon as an absurdity of the Joe; Miller class; but this, (says a writer in Notes ttnd Queries) I conceive to be a mistakes I have not the least doubt that the story of the mutual destruction of the contending cats was an allegory designed to typify the the utter ruin to which centuries of litigation and embroilment on the subject of conflicting rights and privileges tended to reduce the respective exchequers of the rival municipal bodies of Kilkenny and Irishtown—separate corporations existing* within the liberties of one city, and the boundaries of whose respective jurisdiction had never been marked out of defined ;by an authority to which either was willing to bow. Their struggles for precedency, and for the maintenance of alleged rights invaded, commenced A D. 1377, and were carried on with truly feline fierceness and implacability till the end of the seventeenth century, when it may fairly be considered that they had mutually devoured each other to the very tail, as we find their property all mortgaged, and see them each passing bylaws that there respective officers should be content with the dignity of their station, and forego all hope of salary till the suit at law with the other " pretended corporation " should be terminated, and the incumbranees thereby caused removed with the vanquishment of the enemy. Those who have taken the story of the Kilkenny qats in its literal sense have done grievous injustice to the character of the grimalkins of the " fair ; cittie"! who are really quite^as demure and quietly disposed;a race of tabbies'as. it is in the nature of any such animals.Jtp Be.