eudal Dignities_, p. 81., he will find that Theobald le
Botiller, called the second hereditary Butler of Ireland, was of age in
1220, and died, not in 1230, but in 1248; that he married Roesia de Verdon;
that his eldest son and heir was Theobald, third Butler (grandfather of
Edmund, sixth Butler, who was created Earl of Carrick), and that by the
same marriage he was also the ancestor of the Verdons of England and of
Ireland. Now, in Lodge's _Peerage_ by Archdall, 1789, vol. iv. p. 5., it is
said that the wife of Theobald, second Butler, was Joane, eldest sister and
co-heir of John de Marisco, a great baron in Ireland; and thirdly, Sir
Bernard Burke, in his _Extinct Peerage_, makes his wife to be Maud, sister
of Thomas a Becket. Which of these three accounts am I to believe?

Y. S. M.

_Lord Harington (not Harrington)_ (Vol. viii., p. 366.).--In Collins'
_Peerage_, by Sir Egerton Brydges, ed. 1812, I find that Hugh Courtenay,
second Earl of Devon, born in 1303, had a daughter Catherine who married
first, Lord Harington, and secondly, Sir Thomas Engain. This evidently must
have been John, second Lord Harington, who died in 1363, and not William,
fifth lord, as given in Burke: the fifth lord was not born till after 1384,
and died in 1457.

Y. S. M.

_Amontillado_ (Vol. ix., p. 222.).--This wine was first imported into
England about the year 1811, and the supply was so small, that the entire
quantity was only sufficient for the table of three consumers, who speedily
became attached to it, and thenceforward drank no other sherry. One of
these was His Royal Highness the late Duke of Kent; and another, an old
friend of one who now ventures from a distant recollection to give an
account of its origin.

The winegrowers at Xeres de la Frontera had been obliged, in consequence of
the increasing demand for sherry, to extend their vineyards up the sides of
the mountains, beyond the natural soil of the sherry grape. The produce
thus obtained was mixed with the fruit of the more genial soil below, and a
very good sherry for common use was the result.

When the French devastated the neighbourhood of Xeres in 1809, they
destroyed many of the vineyards, and for a time put the winegrowers to
great shifts. One house in particular was obliged to have recourse chiefly
to the mountain grape for the support of its trade, and for the first time
manufactured it without admixture into wine. Very few butts of this produce
would stand, and by