he chance
undoubtedly is, that in a thousand marriages the number of daughters
will not very much exceed the number of sons. But the chance also is,
that several of those marriages will produce daughters, and daughters
only. In every generation of the peerage there are several such cases.
When a peer whose title is limited to male heirs dies, leaving
only daughters, his peerage must expire, unless he have, not only
a collateral heir, but a collateral heir descended through an
uninterrupted line of males from the first possessor of the honour. If
the deceased peer was the first nobleman of his family, then, by the
supposition, his peerage will become extinct. If he was the second, it
will become extinct, unless he leaves a brother or a brother's son. If
the second peer had a brother, the first peer must have had at least two
sons; and this is more than the average number of sons to a marriage in
England. When, therefore, it is considered how many peerages are in the
first and second generation, it will not appear strange that extinctions
should frequently take place. There are peerages which descend to
females as well as males. But, in such cases, if a peer dies, leaving
only daughters, the very fecundity of the marriage is a cause of the
extinction of the peerage. If there were only one daughter, the honour
would descend. If there are several, it falls into abeyance.

But it is needless to multiply words in a case so clear; and, indeed it
is needless to say anything more about Mr Sadler's book. We have, if we
do not deceive ourselves, completely exposed the calculations on which
his theory rests; and we do not think that we should either amuse our
readers or serve the cause of science if we were to rebut in succession
a series of futile charges brought in the most angry spirit against
ourselves; ignorant imputations of ignorance, and unfair complaints of
unfairness,--conveyed in long, dreary, declamations, so prolix that we
cannot find space to quote them, and so confused that we cannot venture
to abridge them.

There is much indeed in this foolish pamphlet to laugh at, from the
motto in the first page down to some wisdom about cows in the last. One
part of it indeed is solemn enough, we mean a certain jeu d'esprit of
Mr Sadler's touching a tract of Dr Arbuthnot's. This is indeed "very
tragical mirth," as Peter Quince's playbill has it; and we would not
advise any person who reads for amusement to venture on it as long