The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9 | Page 6

among the descendants of Thomas
Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, fifth son of Edward III., we may
mention Mr. Stephen James Penny, the late sexton at St. George's,
Hanover Square.
"The story of the Gargraves is a melancholy chapter in the romance of
real life. For full two centuries, or more, scarcely a family in Yorkshire
enjoyed a higher position. Its chiefs earned distinction in peace and war;
one died in France, Master of the Ordnance to King Henry V.; another,
a soldier, too, fell with Salisbury, at the siege of Orleans; and a third
filled the Speaker's chair of the House of Commons. What an awful
contrast to this fair picture does the sequel offer. Thomas Gargrave, the
Speaker's eldest son, was hung at York, for murder; and his
half-brother, Sir Richard, endured a fate only less miserable. The
splendid estate he inherited he wasted by the most wanton extravagance,
and at length reduced himself to abject want. 'His excesses,' says Mr.
Hunter, in his 'History of Doncaster,' 'are still, at the expiration of two
centuries, the subject of village tradition; and his attachment to gaming
is commemorated in an old painting, long preserved in the neighboring
mansion of Badsworth, in which he is represented as playing at the old
game of put, the right hand against the left, for the stake of a cup of ale.
"The close of Sir Richard's story is as lamentable as its course. An utter
bankrupt in means and reputation, he is stated to have been reduced to
travel with the pack-horses to London, and was at last found dead in an
old hostelry! He had married Catherine, sister of Lord Danvers, and by
her left three daughters. Of the descendants of his brothers few
particulars can be ascertained. Not many years since, a Mr. Gargrave,

believed to be one of them, filled the mean employment of parish-clerk
of Kippax.
"A similar melancholy narrative applies to another great Yorkshire
house. Sir William Reresby, Bart., son and heir of the celebrated author,
succeeded, at the death of his father, in 1689, to the beautiful estate of
Thrybergh, in Yorkshire, where his ancestors had been seated
uninterruptedly from the time of the Conquest; and he lived to see
himself denuded of every acre of his broad lands. Le Neve states, in his
MSS. preserved in the Heralds' College, that he became a tapster in the
King's Bench Prison, and was tried and imprisoned for cheating in 1711.
He was alive in 1727, when Wootton's account of the Baronets was
published. In that work he is said to be reduced to a low condition. At
length he died in great obscurity, a melancholy instance how low
pursuits and base pleasures may sully the noblest name, and waste an
estate gathered with labor and preserved by the care of a race of
distinguished progenitors. Gaming was amongst Sir William's
follies--particularly that lowest specimen of the folly, the fights of
game-cocks. The tradition at Thrybergh is (for his name is not quite
forgotten) that the fine estate of Dennaby was staked and lost on a
single main. Sir William Reresby was not the only baronet who
disgraced his order at that period. In 1722, Sir Charles Burton was tried
at the Old Bailey for stealing a seal; pleaded poverty, but was found
guilty, and sentenced to transportation; which sentence was afterward
commuted for a milder punishment."
* * * * *
MADRID AND THE SPANISH SENATE.
Gazpacho; or, Summer Months in Spain, is the title of a new book by
W. George Clark, published in London. Gazpacho, it seems, is the
name of a dish peculiar to Spain, but of universal use there, a sort of
cold soup, made up of familiars and handy things, as bread, pot-herbs,
oil, and water. "My Gazpacho," says the author, "has been prepared
after a similar receipt. I know not how it will please the more refined
and fastidious palates to which it will be submitted; indeed, amid the
multitude of dainties wherewith the table is loaded, it may well remain
untasted." It at least deserves a better fate than that. The volume relates,
in a pleasant, intelligent, and gossiping way, a summer's ramble
through Spain, describing with considerable force the peculiarities of

its people, and the romantic features by which it is marked. The clever
painter could not have better materials. The party-colored costumes of
the peasants, like dahlias at a Chiswick show; the somber garments of
the priests, the fine old churches, the queer rambling houses, looking
centuries old, the dull, gloomy streets of Madrid, the life and activity of
the market-place. Such are the objects upon which the eye rests, and of
which Mr. Clark was too observant to neglect any. The following
passages will give an idea of the materials of