Titles of Peerage, in strictly alphabetical order, from

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

JOHN FREEMAN MITFORD,

BARON REDESDALE OF REDESDALE, IN THE COUNTY OF
NORTHUMBERLAND, A PRIVY COUNSELLOR OF GREAT

BRITAIN AND IRELAND, AND A LORD OF TRADE AND
PLANTATIONS, F.R.S. F.S.A.

MY LORD,

Respect for your Lordship's eminent public services, and more especially for the important assistance which your profound legal acquirements have afforded to the "Lords' Committees appointed to search for documents touching the dignity of a Peer of the Realm," has induced me to solicit the honour of being allowed to inscribe these Volumes to your Lordship; and as there is no individual so competent to judge if they are in any degree

worthy of consideration, I assure you, my Lord, that there is no one whose approbation of them I should be so proud to obtain.

With the highest respect,

I have the honour to subscribe myself,

NICHOLAS HARRIS NICOLAS.

MUCH as has been published on the Peerage of England, persons conversant with the subject have probably felt that a work was required which should contain a concise account, not only of the state of every Title of Dignity which has existed in this Country, from the Conquest to the present time, but which would also present to a single reference the surname of each individual who possessed a particular honour in any year within that period; for, from the mutability of political affairs in the early part of our history, the same title has often been borne by four, five, and even ten different families. It is consequently impossible to remember the family-name of the person, when, as is uniformly the case, he is mentioned by historians by his title, and to ascertain it has hitherto been attended with much research. Antiquaries, it is true, generally possess those voluminous and expensive works which contain every information on the subject; but from their comparative rarity, as well as the peculiar nature of their contents, they are but little consulted by the more numerous classes of the literary world; and it is presumed, that even Anti. quaries themselves have frequently experienced the want of a small work, containing those general points of information connected with the English Peerage, which occasion them, on each reference, much trouble and loss of time.