Excerpt from The Romance of the Peerage, Vol. 1: Or Curiosities of Family History The conception of some such work as the present has probably occurred to many persons. The subject is seen at the first glance to be an abundantly rich one, and it is also nearly unbroken ground. Unbroken, at least, by the plough, or for any productive purpose. It has been subjected, to be sure, to a Species of spade husbandry; left exclusively to the genealogists, it has lain like a large and fertile tract of country made over to the grave-diggers. That there are serious difficulties in the way of reclaiming it to the uses of popular lite rature may, however, be inferred from the attempt never having been made. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.