ithout vouching
for its truth, that during the last conflict for Grecian
independence and deliverance from the Turkish yoke, a letter was
received from the provisional government at Athens, addressed to the
authorities in Barbadoes, inquiring whether a male branch of the
Palaeologi was still existing in the island, and conveying the
request that if such were the case he should be provided with the
means of returning to Greece, and the government would, if required,
pay all the expenses of the voyage. This story was not current in
Europe, at all events; and we on this side the water never dreamed
that among the competitors of King Leopold for the throne was a
veritable scion of the old imperial sovereigns of Constantinople.

The events detailed in the preceding narrative are fitted to suggest
various interesting reflections and amusing speculations. The fate
of the Palaeologi--one day on a throne, the next in a dungeon,
passing from regal state to wretched exile--may have been the bitter
lot of other imperial families. If we find the descendants of the
Greek emperors in the humble occupation of sailors and
churchwardens, and vestrymen and road-trustees, there is nothing
extravagant in the supposition, that we may have royal porters and
scavengers on our streets, the sceptre having degenerated into the
besom, and the truck taken the place of the chariot of state. The
family of Nimrod may still exist, and retain their ancestral
propensities in the craft of sportsmen and deer-stalkers, or in the
lower grade of Jehus and jockeys. Who knows but the posterity of
Solomon may be retailing old clothes, and the heirs of the
Nebuchadnezzar dynasty still exist somewhere--perhaps among our
graziers or cattle-dealers, our keepers of dairies or secretaries of
agricultural associations. The line of Tamerlane may have ended in a
grave-digger, and that of Frederick Barbarossa in a hair-dresser.
The ideal transmigration of Pythagoras was not more improbable or
more wonderful than the strange metamorphoses through which, in the
course of centuries, the living representatives of kings and
emperors are sometimes doomed to pass.

* * * * *

[Footnote 1: There is a slight error in the date of the inscription,
as the entry of his burial is October 20th 1636.]

[Footnote 2: Only two sons of Thomas are mentioned by Gibbon--Andrew
and Manuel; but the evidence of the Landulph tablet shews that he
must have had a