hen," said Chateaubriand, throwing bread into the water, "I shall
continue to feed my ducks."

JOHN ESTEN COOKE.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

BACONS AND BARONETS.

There died in November last a gentleman who, though not remarkable
himself, was the head and representative of so famous a family and order
that his death is an event deserving of some notice. This was Sir Henry
Hickman Bacon, premier baronet of England. This gentleman was not the
descendant of the great Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, but head of the
family whence that eminent man, a cadet of the house, sprung.

The origin[M] of this family is lost in the obscurity of centuries. Sir
Nicholas, an eminent lawyer of England in the reign of Queen Mary,
succeeded, when Elizabeth ascended the throne, to the lord-keepership of
the great seal. He married twice, and had a numerous issue, and the
baronet lately deceased is the direct representative of the
lord-keeper's eldest son by his first marriage, who was the first person
created--by James I., on May 22, 1611--a baronet.

And it is not a little remarkable that whilst of the baronetcies since
created an immense percentage have become extinct, and only some half
dozen of those created in 1611 remain, the first ever created has
survived, and bids fair to do so for some time to come. The baronetcy of
Hobart (earl of Buckinghamshire)--whose ancestral seat of Blickling, in
Norfolk, passed some time since, with its magnificent collection of
books, by marriage, into the Scotch family of Ker, and now belongs to
the marquis of Lothian--and that of Shirley (held by Earl Ferrers), seem
to be the only baronetcies now extant whose patents bear date the same
day as that of Bacon.

The others left of the same year are Mordaunt, of which we heard so much
in a trial in 1870; Gerard, an ancient Lancashire Catholic house; Monson
(Lord Monson); Musgrave of Edenhall ("the luck of Edenhall" is the
subject of one of Longfellow's poems); Gresley, Twysden, Temple and
Houghton. The last became well known a few years ago in this country as
the largest holder of Confederate bonds.

Francis Bacon, familiarly known as Lord Bacon, though in fact he never
enjoyed that honor, his titles being Baron Verulam and Viscount St.
Alban's, was second son of his father's second marriage, his mother
being one of three sisters, the most eminent blue-stockings of the
period, daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, of Gidea Hall, Essex