When civil dudgeon first grew high,

And men fell out, they knew not why;

When foul¹ words, jealousies², and fears,

Set folk together by the ears —

BUTLER.

William, the Conqueror³ of England, was, or supposed himself to be, the father of a certain William Peveril, who attended him to the battle of Hastings, and there distinguished⁴ himself. The liberal-minded monarch⁵, who assumed in his charters the veritable title of Gulielmus Bastardus, was not likely to let his son’s illegitimacy be any bar to the course of his royal favour, when the laws of England were issued from the mouth of the Norman victor, and the lands of the Saxons were at his unlimited⁶ disposal. William Peveril obtained a liberal grant of property and lordships in Derbyshire, and became the erecter of that Gothic fortress⁷, which, hanging over the mouth of the Devil’s Cavern⁸, so well known to tourists, gives the name of Castleton to the adjacent village.

From this feudal⁹ Baron¹⁰, who chose his nest upon the principles on which an eagle selects her eyry, and built it in such a fashion as if he had intended it, as an Irishman said of the Martello towers, for the sole purpose of puzzling posterity¹¹, there was, or conceived themselves to be, descended

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