family, and nothing more.
Education and civilization advanced; a wider and very different field of
action and ambition opened upon the aristocracy of England. Our fleets
and armies abroad, our legislature at home, law and the church, presented
brilliant paths to the ambition of those thirsting for distinction, and
the good things that follow it. But somehow the Rockvilles did not expand
with this expansion. So long as it required only a figure of six feet
high, broad shoulders, and a strong arm, they were a great and
conspicuous race. But when the head became the member most in request,
they ceased to go a-head. Younger sons, it is true, served in army and in
navy, and filled the family pulpit, but they produced no generals, no
admirals, no archbishops. The Rockvilles of Rockville were very
conservative, very exclusive, and very stereotype. Other families grew
poor, and enriched themselves again by marrying plebeian heiresses. New
families grew up out of plebeian blood into greatness, and intermingled
the vigor of their fresh earth with the attenuated aristocratic soil. Men
of family became great lawyers, great statesmen, great prelates and even
great poets and philosophers. The Rockvilles remained high, proud,
bigoted, and _borne_.

The Rockvilles married Rockvilles, or their first cousins, the
Cesgvilles, simply to prevent property going out of the family. They kept
the property together. They did not lose an acre, and they were a fine,
tall, solemn race--and nothing more. What ailed them?

If you saw Sir Roger Rockville,--for there was an eternal Sir Roger
filling his office of high sheriff,--he had a very fine carriage, and a
very fine retinue in the most approved and splendid antique costumes; if
you saw him sitting on the bench at quarter sessions, he was a tall,
stately, and solemn man. If you saw Lady Rockville shopping, in her
handsome carriage, with very handsomely attired servants; saw her at the
county ball, or on the race-stand, she was a tall, aristocratic, and
stately lady. That was in the last generation--the present could boast of
no Lady Rockville.

Great outward respect was shown to the Rockvilles on account of the
length of their descent, and the breadth of their acres. They were
always, when any stranger asked about them, declared, with a serious and
important air, to be a very ancient, honorable, and substantial family.
"Oh! a great family are the Rockvilles, a very great family."

But if you