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The wisdom of our ancestors.

I am a gentleman, though spoiled i' the breeding. The Buzzards are all gentlemen. We came with the Conqueror.

I look upon you as a gem of the old rock.

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue, it grafts benevolence even upon avarice. The possession of family wealth and of the distinction which attends hereditary possessions are the natural securities for this transmission.

Some decent regulated pre-eminence, some preference given to birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolite.

A degenerate nobleman, or one that is proud of his birth, is like a turnip. There is nothing good of him but that which is underground.

Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred.

It is disgraceful when the passers-by exclaim, "O ancient house! alas, how unlike is thy present master to thy former one."

I came up-stairs into the world, for I was born in a cellar.

D'Adam nous sommes tous enfants, La prove en est connue, Et que tous, nos premier parents Ont mene la charrue. Mais, las de cultiver enfin La terre labouree L'une a detele le matin, L'autre l'apres-dinee.

Great families of yesterday we show, And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who.

Born is a Cellar, . . . and living in a Garret.

Say, when the ground our father Adam till'd, And mother Eve the humble distaff held, Who then his pedigree presumed to trace, Or challenged the prerogative of place? [Lat., Primus Adam duro cum vertet arva ligone, Pensaque de vili deceret Eva colo: Ecquis in hoc poterat vir nobilis orbe videri? Et modo quisquam alios ante locandue erir?

No, my friends, I go for the man that inherits family traditions and the cumulative humanities of at least four or five generations.

Few sons attain the praise Of their great sires and most their sires disgrace.

The brave are born from the brave and good. In steers and in horses is to be found the excellence of their sire, nor do savage eagles produce a peaceful dove.

"My nobility," said he, "begins in me, but yours ends in you." - Iphicrates,

Faith, I know nothing about it, I am my own ancestor.

Of what use are pedigrees, or to be thought of noble blood, or the display of family portraits, O Ponticus?