ann in olerant; it looked down upon the literature of other countries as semi-barbarous, and the national vanity had raised round itself a kind of Chinese wall of pedantic criticism, which had withstood all the storms of political and religious change. It suited the policy and the taste of Napoleon to encourage this feeling of overweening vanity, for as France was to be, according to him, the mistress of all Europe, and was to dictate laws to all nations, it was proper that the language and literature of France should be considered superior to those of all other countries. Madame de Stael, by extolling the literary productions of the Germans and English, had run against all the predilections and aspirations of the French and of Napoleon; and therefore Savary said, and said truly at the time, that her work was not French. In the end however her work has become French, and her example has had a most beneficial influence upon French literature. Madame de Stael remained for a time at Coppet, closely watched, even on Swiss ground, by the omnipresent French police. She was forbidden to stir more than ten leagues from her residence in any direction, and her friends were prohibited from visiting her, but at last she contrived to escape from thraldom, and went to Russia on her way to England; for at that time a person from the Continent wishing to reach England must find his way to it through the extremities of Europe. She has given an account of her wanderings and the petty but galling persecution to which she was subject, in her Dix Années d'Exil,' a work which, bating some egotism and exaggeration, may be useful to those who wish to form an accurate idea of Napoleon and his principles of government. During her residence at Coppet, Madame de Stael, who had been many years a widow, became acquainted with M. de Rocca, of an old family of Geneva, whom she married privately. He was also an author, and published a book on the French war in Spain. In 1814, after Napoleon's abdication, Madame de Stael returned to Paris, where she, Benjamin Constant, and her other old friends belonged to what was called the Constitutional party, which supported the charter of Louis XVIII. and a bona fide representative government, in opposition to the Bonapartists, who were conspiring for Napoleon, to the old revolutionists, who still dreamt of a republic, and to the ultra royalists, who wished to restore the absolutism of the antient monarchy. The return of Napoleon from Elba decided the question for the moment. Madame de Stael remained at Paris, and, as well as Benjamin Constant, appeared to be reconciled to Napoleon, thinking that he must now accommodate himself to a constitutional system of government. After his second fall, she returned to Switzerland, and seemed to have weaned herself from active politics. She occupied herself with preparing her last work for the press, Considérations sur la Révolution Française,' published after her death, which took place July 14, 1817. She was buried in the family tomb at Coppet. Her son, the Baron de Stael, who died in 1827, made himself known in France, under the Restoration, by his philanthropy, his attachment to constitutional liberty, and by some works of unpretending merit; among others, his 'Lettres sur l'Angleterre,' published in 1825. Madame de Stael's book on the French revolution is one among the crowd of works on that all important subject which deserves to go to posterity. The authoress, being the daughter of Necker, and personally acquainted in early youth with the principal characters of that great drama, was well qualified to record in her after-life the reminiscences of that singular period. In her work she lays bare without bias the springs of action of the different individuals, and exposes the whole internal working of the political machinery, which people from the outside could not accurately understand. She had been, in fact, behind the scenes,' and she was afterwards raised by experience above the vulgar admiration of the crude experiments of the pretended republicans of France. Still her work is not comprehensive; it wants unity of purpose; it is rather a commentary, a book of remarks on the French revolution, than a history of that great event. Her principal object, and it is on her part an amiable one, though somewhat egotistical, was to justify the political conduct of her father M. Necker, an honest but certainly not a first-rate statesman, and one who was totally unfit for the exigencies of the times. Yet in other respects her work has much merit; it is written in a temperate and impartial tone, it bends to none of the short-lived powers of the times, and it exhibits philosophi cal as well as political acuteness. If she had,' says her friend Benjamin Constant, painted individuals more frequently and more in detail, her work, though it might have ranked lower as a literary composition, would have gained in interest. Some of her characters, especially of the earlier period of the revolution, such as Calonne, Brienne, Mirabeau, Pethion, are most graphically sketched. Madame de Stael wrote several other works. That 'On the Influence of the Passions,' published in 1796, although it contains many acute remarks, partakes of the unsettled morality of the times, being written just after the period of the reign of terror. In it she reflects upon the fearful vision that had just passed, and this work ought to be read as an appendage to her later work on the French revolution. She wrote also Réflexions sur le Suicide;' Essa: sur les Fictions; and several tales and other minor compositions. She contributed a few articles to the 'Biographie Universelle,' among which is that on Aspasia.' Her works have been collected and published in 17 vols. 8vo., Paris, 1830. As a literary person she was the most distinguished woman of her age. She was open to the weaknesses of ambition, but she was always independent, honest, and sincere. STAFF, in Music. The five parallel lines and the four spaces between the lines, on which notes and other musical characters are placed, are, collectively, called the Staff. STAFF, MILITARY. In the British empire this consists, under the king and the general commanding-in-chief, of those general, field, and regimental officers to whom is confided the care of providing the means of rendering the military force of the nation efficient, of maintaining discipline in the army, and regulating the duties in every branch of the service. Besides the commander-in-chief, his military secretaries and aides-de-camp, the general staff consists of the adjutant and quartermaster-generals, with their respective deputies, assistants, and deputy-assistants; the director-general of the medical department, and the chaplain-general of the forces. The staff of the Ordnance department consists of the master-general and lieutenant-general, with their deputies and assistants; the inspector of fortifications, and the director of the engineers. The head-quarters for the general staff are in London. There are also, for the several military districts into which Great Britain is divided, inspecting field-officers, assistant adjutants-general, and majors of brigade, together with the officers attached to the recruiting service. The head-quarters for Scotland are at Edinburgh. For Ireland, besides the lord-lieutenant and his aides-de-camp, the chiefs of the staff consist of a deputyadjutant and a deputy-quartermaster-general, with their assistants. Their head-quarters are at Dublin; and there are, besides, the several officers for the military districts of that part of the empire. Lastly, in each of the colonies there is a staff graduated in accordance with the general staff of the army, and consisting of the general commanding, his aides-de-camp, military secretaries, and majors of brigade, an inspecting field-officer, a deputy-adjutant, and a deputy-quartermaster-general. The adjutant-general of the army is charged with the duty of recruiting, clothing, and arming the troops, superintending their discipline, granting leave of absence, and discharging the men when the period of their service is expired. To the quartermaster-general is confided the duty of regulating the marches of the troops, providing the supplies of provisions, and assigning the quarters, or places of encampment. All military commanders of territories or of bodies of troops in Great Britain, Ireland, or in foreign stations, transmit periodically to the adjutant-general of the army circumstantial accounts of the state of the territory and of the troops which they command; and the reports are regularly submitted to the general commanding-in-chief. The staff of a regiment consists of the adjutant, quartermaster, paymaster, chaplain, and surgeon. The duties of & military staff, as a branch of tactics, may be said to have originated in modern Europe during the reign of Louis XIV., when armies of great numerical strength were opposed to each other. The difficulty of finding subsistence for such vast bodies of men induced the generals to form them into grand divisions, which were quartered in different parts of a country. The art of war then began to consist in a great measure in making com bined movements of troops, and in the choice of strong posi- | it affords of supplying provisions or quarters for the troops. tions; and the Maréchal de Luxembourg is said to have [RECONNOISSANCE.] been chiefly distinguished for his skill in conducting the operations of warfare on this principle. Maréchal Puysegur, who began to serve in 1677, observes that before his time, except the rules of fortification, no theory or established principles relating to the art of war had been given; and he appears to have been the first who, by actual observations of a country, made himself acquainted with the facilities which it afforded for marching or encamping. He states that this duty had till then been omitted entirely or negligently performed, the knowledge of the roads and positions being obtained only from the reports of officers who had accidentally made observations, or from the accounts of the countrypeople; and he adds that often, when a march had commenced, or an encampment had been formed, the army was compelled to change its route or abandon the position on account of impediments in the one or the unfitness of the other. The staff-officer ought also to know how to correct the illusions to which the eye is subject in examining ground, from the different states of the air, and the number and nature of the objects which may intervene between himself and those whose positions are required. He ought to be able to estimate the number of men whom a visible tract of ground can contain, and to form a judgment concerning the dispositions and stratagems which it may permit an army to put in practice. The first establishment of a permanent military staff (état majeur, as it was called) was made in France in 1783, about the conclusion of the Revolutionary war between Great Britain and the United States of America. The officers who held the highest rank in it were considered as assistant-quartermaster-generals, and their deputies as captains. The first duties consisted in collecting the reports, the orders and instructions which had formerly passed between the generals of the French armies and the minister of war, together with the plans of the ground on which the most important actions had taken place; and from these documents it was endeavoured to acquire a knowledge of the causes of success or defeat as far as these depended on the dispositions of the troops and the nature of the ground. The persons who were allowed to enter the department of the état majeur were such as, to a knowledge of the general theory of military tactics, added that of topographical surveying, and who were skilful in the art of representing on a plan the features of ground so as to present to the eye at once a view of its capabilities as a military position, and of the facilities which it might afford for the march of troops with their artillery and stores. About the year 1800 the British government first formed a particular school for the purpose of instructing officers in the art of surveying ground in connection with that part of tactics which relates to the choice of routes and of advantageous positions for troops. These officers were independent of the master-general of the ordnance, and served under the orders of the quartermaster-general or adjutant-general; they were called staff-officers, and were selected from the cavalry or infantry after having done duty with a regiment at least four years. They were first employed in Egypt, where they rendered considerable service; and the school was afterwards united to the Royal Military College, which had been then recently instituted for the instruction of cadets who were to serve in the cavalry or the infantry of the line. At that institution a limited number of officers, under the name of the senior department, continue to be instructed in the duties of the staff, and in the sciences connected with the military art. During the war in Spain, from 1808 to 1813, the staffofficers were constantly employed, previously to a march or a retreat, in surveying the country at least one day's journey in front of the army. After the death of the duke of York, the staff corps ceased to be kept up, and for several years it was reduced to a single company, which was charged with the duty of repairing the military canal at Hythe. This company was afterwards incorporated with the corps of sappers and miners. The duties of officers belonging to the quartermastergeneral's staff are very different from those of the military engineers; the latter are employed in the construction of permanent fortifications, batteries, and field-works; while the former survey ground in order to discover roads, or sites for military positions, for fields of battle, or quarters for the troops. The education of a staff-officer is such as may qualify him for appreciating the military character of ground: for this purpose he learns to trace the directions of roads and the courses of rivers or streams; and in mountainous countries to distinguish the principal chains from their ramifications, to examine the entrances of gorges, and to determine the heights of eminences or the depths of ravines. He has besides, to acquire a facility in determining or estimating the resources of a district with respect to the means STAFFA. This small basaltic island, lying west of the larger trap masses of Mull, once difficult of access in open boats only, may now, during the summer, be visited in wellequipped steamers from Oban and Tobermorie, and on the same day the voyager may land on Iona. Staffa is entirely composed of amorphous and pillared basalt: the pillars have in many parts of the rugged coast yielded to the action of the sea, and permitted the formation of caves, some of them uncommonly picturesque, which are generally arched over by what seems to be amorphous trap rock, but really is often prismatised in an irregular manner. The island has a very irregular and unequal surface, affording poor pasture. On this detached narrow surface are boulders of granite resembling the red rock of Russ 14 Mull. Staffa, since it was almost discovered in 1772, by St Joseph Banks, who in his letter to Pennant notices very accurately the mineral structure and the picturesque caverns and cliffs, has been visited and described by many persons of eminence. M'Culloch (Geology of the Scottish Isles) has published very elegant drawings of Fingal's Cave and several other points of picturesque and geological interest, and two of the best prints which we have seen of Fingal's Cave are those engraved by direction of the late Thomas Allan, Esq., and published in the article ' Geology' of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Skirting in a boat the coast of Staffa, the frequent cares and ranges of pillars, erect, or curved beneath a huge ental lature of rock, and the regular pavement formed by the angular sections of the pillars, astonish the spectator. The Boat-Cave, Mackinnon's or the Cormorant Cave (it is much frequented by these birds), and Fingal's Cave, may, in ordinary weather, be explored in a boat, and a landing may be effected on Buachaillé (Boo-cha-la), the Herdsman's Isle, which is remarkable for its arched columns of basalt. Fingal's Cave may be entered on foot, on the south sid, along a rugged pavement of pillar-tops. Looking out from near the extremity, the eye is delighted with the bright prospect of Iona, through the long dark vista of the cave; above, the roof is formed partly of pillar-sections, and partly of the already mentioned amorphous trap; the sides are straight vertical prisms of basalt, washed at their base by a deep and often tumultuous sea. The following measures in this celebrated spot are taken from Sir J. Banks's letter already referred to: 9 0 Depth of water at the bottom of the cave On a careful survey of the rocky cliffs of Staffa, we see that the basaltic mass may be considered in three parts-a subjacent amorphous and lava-like mass, 11, 17, or 20 fai exposed, on which (especially beyond the north-west side of Fingal's Cave), the pillars, 30, 50, 54, 55 feet high, rest, ar. these are covered by a seemingly amorphous but really inn gularly prismatic entablature, 30, 50, and 66 feet in thickness (Banks's measures). The tops of the pillars are usually in a nearly regular plane declining to the south-east, and their bases are also in a surface nearly parallel. The section of the pillars is rarely triangular or quadrangular, generally pentagonal or hexagonal. Some of them are 2 feet in da meter, others as small as 1 foot, 9 inches, or even 6 inches They are less regularly jointed than those of the Giants H Causeway, and most frequently the joint surfaces are concave in the lower stone. Zeolitic minerals occur sparingly in the basalt and in the interstices of the pillars. (Pennant's Tour in Scotland, including Banks's Letter to Pennant, 1772; Neceer, Voyage en Ecosse, 1821; M'Culloch's Western Isles of Scotland.) STAFFORD, Duke of Buckingham. [BUCKINGHAM.] STAFFORD, WILLIAM HOWARD, VISCOUNT, was the second surviving son of Thomas, twentieth earl of Arundel (the collector of the Arundelian Marbles), by his wife the lady Alathea Talbot, daughter of Gilbert, seventh earl of Shrewsbury: he was born on the 30th of November, 1612. He was thus uncle to Thomas, the twenty-second earl of Arundel, who was restored, after the return of Charles II., to the dukedom of Norfolk, which had been forfeited by his great-great-grandfather. Burnet, who knew Lord Stafford in his last days, says, 'He was a weak but a fair-conditioned man; he was in ill terms with his nephew's family; and had been guilty of great vices in his youth, which had almost proved fatal to him.' While he was known as Sir William Howard, K.B., he married Mary, sister of Henry, thirteenth Baron Stafford; which Henry died, unmarried, in 1637, when his barony descended to his distant relation Roger Stafford, a person who appears to have sunk to the lowest class of the people, though the great-grandson of the famous Edward Stafford, third duke of Buckingham, and also of Margaret Plantagenet, the unfortunate countess of Salisbury, and niece of King Edward IV. Roger's sister was married to a joiner at Newport, in Shropshire, and they had a son who lived in that town, following the trade of a cobbler. Nor had the elder branch of the family, in which the title remained for several generations, been always much more honourably matched: Roger's uncle, Edward, the eleventh lord, indeed married a daughter of the earl of Derby; but his son, Edward, the twelfth lord, chose to share his title with his mother's chambermaid; and from her, through a son, who died during the life of his father, were sprung the thirteenth baron, Henry, already mentioned, and his sister, who became the wife of Sir William Howard. ་ Upon the death of his brother-in-law, Sir William Howard immediately assumed, or at least claimed, the title of Baron Stafford, in right of his wife, a claim which, in any circumstances, certainly could not have been sustained at that day. But it was soon discovered, and admitted on all hands, that the true heir to the barony survived in the person of Roger Stafford, although he had hitherto gone by the name of Fludd or Floyd. Roger however was induced, no doubt for a consideration, to submit his title to the dignity, on the 5th of December, 1637, to the decision of the king, upon which submission,' it is stated, his majesty declared his royal pleasure that the said Roger Stafford, having no. part of the inheritance of the said Lord Stafford, nor any other lands or means whatsoever, should make a resignation of all claims to the title of Lord Stafford, for his majesty to dispose of as he should see fit.' A deed of surrender was accordingly enrolled on the 7th of December, 1639; and, although such a resignation of a peerage has since been decided to be illegal, the king now considered himself at liberty to dispose of the dignity. On the 12th of September, 1640, Sir William Howard was created baron, and his wife baroness Stafford; and on the 11th of November following Lord Stafford was made a viscount, that being found to be the only way of giving him as high a precedency as the former barons. Roger is supposed to have died unmarried in the course of the same year. Lord Stafford had been bred a strict Roman Catholic, and during the civil war he adhered to the royal side. After the Restoration, according to Burnet, he thought the king had not rewarded him for his former services as he had deserved; so he often voted against the court, and made great applications always to the earl of Shaftesbury. He was on no good terms with the duke [of York]; for the great consideration the court had of his nephew's family made him to be the most [more?] neglected.' He does not however appear to have ever made any figure in parliament down to the time when all the Roman Catholic peers, twenty-one in number (besides three who conformed), were excluded from the House by the act of the 30th of Char. II., st. 2, to which the royal assent was given on the 30th of November, 1678. Under date of 18th June, 1670, Evelyn records in his 'Diary' that he met Lord Stafford at a dinner party at P. C., No. 1410. Goring House (the town residence of Lord Arlington); when, he says, Lord Stafford rose from table in some disorder because there were roses stuck about the fruit when the desert was set on the table, he having such an antipathy to them as once Lady St. Leger had; and to that degree that, as Sir Kenelm Digby tells us, laying but a rose upon her cheek when she was asleep, it raised a blister; but Sir Kenelm was a teller of strange things.' Lord Stafford is only remembered in history as the last and most distinguished of the numerous victims whose lives were sacrificed in the tragedy of the Popish Plot. [OATES, TITUS.] In his first examination before the Commons, on the 23rd of October, 1678, Oates mentioned Stafford as the person who had been appointed by the general of the Jesuits to the office of paymaster of the army. Two days after, Stafford rose in his place in the House of Lords, and stated that he was informed there was a warrant issued out from the lord chief justice of England to apprehend him, and submitted himself to their lordships' judgment. Burnet says, When Oates deposed first against him, he happened to be out of the way, and he kept out a day longer; but the day after he came in and delivered himself, which, considering the feebleness of his temper and the heat of that time, was thought a sign of innocence.' Before the House rose he intimated that he should surrender to the warrant; and after being consigned in the first instance to the prison of the King's Bench, he was ultimately, on the 30th, committed to the Tower, along with the other accused noblemen, the earl of Powis, and the Lords Petre, Arundel, and Belasyse. On the 5th of December, a message was brought from the Commons by Sir Scrope How, who informed their lordships that he was commanded to impeach Lord Stafford of high treason and other high crimes and misdemeanours. Three days after the earl of Essex laid before the house an information which had been sworn on the 24th before two magistrates of the county of Stafford by Stephen Dugdale, Gent., late servant of the Lord Aston, of Tixhall,' who asserted therein that in the beginning of September of the preceding year, he had been promised a large reward by Lord Stafford and a Jesuit of the name of Vrie or Evers, if he would join in a conspiracy to take the king's life. The prorogation of the parliament at the end of the month, and its dissolution a few weeks after, prevented any further proceedings being taken until after the assembling of the new parliament in the beginning of March, 1679. On the 18th of that month the lords' committee of privileges, to whom the question had been referred, reported their opinion that, in all cases of appeals and writs of error, they continue and are to be proceeded on in statu quo, as they stood at the commencement of the last parliament, without beginning de novo;' and on the following day the house, after debate, agreed to this report. The commons sent up their articles of impeachment against the five lords on the 7th of April; and on the 16th Lord Stafford put in his answer, in which he protested his entire innocence of the crimes laid to his charge. Another prorogation, followed by a dissolution, took place in the end of May; and the new parliament did not meet for the despatch of business till October, 1680. During all this time the accused lords had lain in the Tower; and meanwhile the plot had been propped up by the testimony of Bedloe, Dangerfield, Turberville, Denis, and other new witnesses. At last, on Tuesday, the 30th of November (his birth-day), Lord Stafford, selected, according to Sir John Reresby, as being 'deemed to be weaker than the other lords in the Tower,' was brought to the bar of the House of Lords, assembled as a court of justice in Westminster Hall, to take his trial, the lord chancellor, Lord Finch (afterwards earl of Nottingham), presiding as lord high steward. Reresby and Evelyn were both present, and have both given us an account of the scene. A singular circumstance mentioned by Evelyn is, that Stafford's two daughters, the marchioness of Winchester being one of them, were with him in his box, as well as the lieutenant of the Tower, the axe-bearer, and the guards. He remarks also that just forty years before, when Lord Strafford was tried in the same place, the lord steward was the present prisoner's father (the late earl of Arundel). Reresby says it was the deepest solemnity he ever saw. Besides Oates and Dugdale, who repeated their former evidence with additions or variations, Turberville swore that Stafford had In the printed 'Diary' at this place (vol. i., p. 496, 4to edit ), the prisoner by mistake called Lord Strafford throughout. VOL. XXII.-3 G is was admitted to have established his claim as heir to the barony (which had been granted with remainder to the heirs of Sir William Howard and his wife), through their granddaughter Mary, who married Francis Plowden of Plowden, Esq, in the county of Salop, and was the maternal grandmother of Sir William Jerningham. also offered him a reward to kill the king. The trial lasted | the following year Sir George William Jerningham, Bart., seven days. Reresby says that the prisoner so far deceived those who counted upon a poor defence, as to plead his cause to a miracle.' Burnet also, who, we have seen, had no high opinion of Stafford's strength of mind, admits that he behaved himself during the whole time, and at the receiving his sentence, with much more constancy than was expected from him.' When the votes of their lordships were taken, on Tuesday, the 7th of December, 31 voted Not Guilty, and 55 Guilty. (State Trials, vii., 1293-1576.) Four of the Howards, his relations, namely, the earls of Carlisle, Berkshire, and Suffolk, and Lord Howard of Escrick, condemned him; the only one of his own family who voted for his acquittal was Lord Arundel (sitting as Lord Mowbray), the son of the duke of Norfolk. Within two days after his condemnation he sent for Burnet and the bishop of London, to whom he made the most solemn protestations of his innocence. I pressed him in several points of religion,' says Burnet, and urged several things which he said he had never heard before. He said these things on another occasion would have made some impression upon him; but he had now little time, therefore he would lose none in controversy: so I let that discourse fall. I talked to him of those preparations for death in which all Christians agree; he entertained these very seriously, much above what I expected from him.' However, he was desirous of saving his life, if it could be done; and he told Burnet, that if that would obtain his pardon, he could and would discover many other things that were more material than anything that was yet known, and for which the duke [of York] would never forgive him.' Upon this being reported to the House of Lords, he was immediately sent for; when he began,' says Burnet, with a long relation of their [the Catholics'] first consultations about the methods of bringing in their religion, which they all agreed could only be brought about by a toleration. He told them of the earl of Bristol's project; and went on to tell who had undertaken to procure the toleration for them; and then he named the earl of Shaftesbury. When he named him, he was ordered to withdraw; and the lords would hear no more from him.' It is pretty evident from all this that he really had nothing of any consequence to tell. He was sent back,' continues Burnet, to the Tower; and there he composed himself in the best way he could to suffer, which he did with a constant and undisturbed mind: he supped and slept well the night before his execution, and died without any show of fear or disorder. He denied all that the witnesses had sworn against him.' He was executed on Tower Hill on the morning of Wednesday the 29th of December. When his majesty's writ was found to remit all the rest of the sentence except the beheading, the two republican sheriffs, Bethel and Cornish, professed to feel scruples as to whether they were warranted in acting upon it; but the Commons at last stepped in and settled the matter by resolving That this House is content that the sheriffs of London and Middlesex do execute William, late Viscount Stafford, by severing his head from his body only. Lord Russell is stated to have 'stickled for the severer mode of executing the sentence;' and it is said that when Charles, three years after, granted a similar commutation of punishment when his lordship was sent to the scaffold, his majesty observed, 'He shall find that I have the privilege which he was pleased to deny in the case of Lord Stafford.' A bill to reverse the attainder of Lord Stafford passed the Lords in 1685, but did not obtain the assent of the Commons. In 1688 his widow was created by James II. countess of Stafford for life, and her eldest son Henry, earl of Stafford, with remainder to his brothers John and Francis, and their heirs male; but the earldom became extinct by the death of John Paul, the fourth earl, in 1762. In 1800 certain proceedings were instituted on behalf of Sir William Jerningham and the lady Anastasia Stafford Howard, daughter of William, second earl of Stafford, and great-granddaughter of the attainted lord (who died a nun at Paris in 1807, at the age of 85), as conjoint heirs, with a view of establishing the existence of the barony of Stafford, on the ground that (as above stated) it had been conferred not only upon Sir William Howard, but also upon his wife, and that therefore it descended to her heirs, notwithstanding the forfeiture of her husband. But this claim was not prosecuted. At length however on the 17th of June, 1824, an act of parliament was passed reversing the viscount's attainder; and STAFFORD. [STAFFORDSHIRE.] STAFFORDSHIRE, a midland county of England, bounded on the north-east by Derbyshire, on the east for a very short distance by Leicestershire, on the south-east by Warwickshire, on the south by Worcestershire, on the south-west and west by Shropshire, and on the north-west by Cheshire. The form of the county is irregular; its greatest length is from north to south, from Ax-edge Common, at the junction of the three counties, Cheshire, Derbyshire, and Staffordshire, to the neighbourhood of Bewdley (Worcestershire), 60 miles; the greatest breadth at right angles to the length, is from the junction of the Dove with the Trent, below Burton, to the neighbourhood of MarketDrayton (Shropshire), 38 miles. The southern border of the county is very intricate; the counties of Warwick, Worcester, Salop, and Stafford being very much complicated: a portion of Worcestershire, including the town of Dudley, is entirely insulated by Staffordshire, and a detached portion of Staffordshire is entirely surrounded by Worcestershire. The area of the county is estimated at 1184 square miles. The population at the time of the different enumerations was as follows:-1801, 239,153; 1811, 295,153; increase in ten years, 21 per cent.: 1821, 345,895 ; increase 17 per cent.: 1831, 410,512; increase 19 per cent: 1841, 510,206; increase 242 per cent. The last enumeration for 1831 (which we retain to facilitate comparison with counties previously described) gives 347 inhabitants to a square mile. In respect of size it is the eighteenth of the English counties, being smaller than Gloucestershire, but larger than the county of Durham. In amount of population (in 1831) it is the seventh, being next to Kent; and in density of population the fifth, being exceeded in this respect only by the metropolitan counties of Middlesex and Surrey, and the counties of Lancaster and Warwick. Stafford, the county town, is 125 miles north-west of the General Post-office, London, in a direct line; or 143 miles by the Birmingham and Grand Junction railways. Surface and Geology. -The northern is the highest part of the county. It consists chiefly of wild moorlands, formed by long ridges extending from north-west to southeast, separated from each other by deep dells or by valleys watered by the tributaries of the Trent, and gradually S siding towards the banks of that river. The principal Sunmits are-Cloud end, Biddulph Moor, Mow Cop (1091 feet above the level of the sea), Wicken Stones, Gun Moor, Bunster hill (given in Shaw's History of Staffordshire at 1200 feet), and High Roches, all in the northern part of the county toward the Cheshire border; Moredge, Caldon Low, Ecton hill, Ramshaw Rocks, Wever hill (1154 feet, as marked in Arrowsmith's Map of England; or 1500 feet according to Shaw), and Swinecote or Swinscoe hill, are also in the northern part, but nearer to the Derbyshire side. On the eastern side of the county, between Abbots Bromley and Burton-upon-Trent, are the high grounds of Needwood Forest; and south of the Trent, toward the centre of the county, between Stafford and Litchfield, are the high grounds of Cannock Chase, one part of which (Castle Ring) is 715 feet high. On the south-eastern border, between Walsall and Sutton Coldfield, is Bar Beacon, an elevation of 653 feet; and between Dudley and Hales Owen are the Rowley hills, given by Shaw at 900 feet. These Rowley hills are the prolongation of the heights which rise to the south-east of Wolverhampton, and skirt the valley through which the Birmingham Canal Navigations pass. The western side of the county is occupied by a tract of high ground, which separates the waters that flow westward by the Severn into the Atlantic from those which flow eastward by the Trent, and the Humber into the North Sea. Ashley heath, on this range of high land, has an elevation of 803 feet, as marked in the map to Priestley's 'Navigable Rivers.' The heights, where not otherwise expressed. are from the 'Ordance Survey. Those from Shaw's Staffordshire' are probably much too great. The lowest spots in the county are probably the bank of the Severn at Over Arley, at the south-west extremity of the county, and the bank of the Trent, at the junction of the Dove, on the eastern border. These are given by Shaw at 60 feet and 100 feet respectively above the level of the tide of the Thames at Brentford. Nearly the whole of the county is included in the great redmarl or new red-sandstone district of central England. The northern part is indeed beyond the limit of this formation; and there are some insulated districts occupied by the coalmeasures or other subjacent formations, which rise through the red-marl. The higher grounds of Needwood Forest and Cannock Chase, as well as those which separate the basin of the Trent from that of the Severn, consist of this (red-marl) formation. Gypsum is quarried in Needwood Forest and in the adjacent part of the valley of the Dove. The pure white gypsum, or that slightly streaked with red, yields plaster of Paris, which is much used in the potteries for moulds; selected blocks are turned, or otherwise converted into ornamental articles. The commoner sorts are used for coarser purposes, as flooring, building walls, &c. Limestone is quarried near Newcastle, in the pottery district. Brinesprings abound near the Trent, particularly at Weston, near Stafford, where salt-works have been established. In the neighbourhood of Litchfield the red marl is covered by alluvial deposits of red sand or gravel. The A prolongation of the South Lancashire coa.-field extends into the northern part of the county about Flash, where are several coal - works. The Warwickshire coal - field just touches the border near Tamworth. The coal-works of the county are very numerous and important; in the south they supply the iron and other hardware manufactures of Birmingham, Dudley, Wolverhampton, Wednesbury, Bilston, Walsall, &c.; and furnish fuel to the neighbouring counties to a considerable distance, and in the north they supply the fuel to the Pottery district. Perhaps the neighbourhood of Birmingham is the cheapest district for coals in England, and the consumption is prodigious. From their small value, they are worked in a very wasteful manner; one-third is left in the pit, as being two small to be worth the cost of removal, and is speedily destroyed by the weather; the pillars left standing probably amount to another third. Ironstone is abundant in the Dudley coal-field. The high moorlands of the northern part of the county consist partly of millstone grit and shale; partly of carboniferous or mountain limestone. The millstone grit occupies the central and western portion, cropping out from beneath the Pottery and Cheadle and South Lancashire coal-fields, and overspreading the intervening country. The mountain limestone district comprehends the eastern moorlands, and extends across the upper valley of the Dove into Derbyshire. There are several lead-mines and copper-mines in this district. The Dudley or South Staffordshire coal-field extends from Cannock Chase to the Worcestershire border near Stourbridge, about 20 miles in length from north by east to south by west; and from King's Swinford to Soho, near Birmingham, 10 miles in breadth from west to east. Hydrography, Communications, &c.-The county belongs dimensions indeed include not only the coal-field itself, but almost entirely to the basin of the Humber. The Trent, the the Rowley hills, which are composed of transition and other most important tributary of that æstuary, rises from three rocks, by which it is intersected. These hills consist of two springs near the northern border of the county, near Knyperdifferent formations: the north-western part, between Wolsley Hall; and runs in a southerly direction through the Potverhampton and Dudley, consists of four oblong insulated teries 12 miles, to Trentham, the seat of the Duke of Sutherhills, all of transition limestone, 'n arched or saddle-shaped land. From thence it runs 18 miles, still to the south east, strata. Against the sides of these hills the coal beds crop out, by Stone and Rugely, being joined above the latter by the and become flatter as they recede from them...e millstone river Sow. From Rugely the Trent bends eastward 10 miles grit, carboniferous limestone, and old red-sandstone are not to the junction of the Tame and the Mease, and then turnfound in connection with this coal-field, but the coal mea-ing to the north-east runs 8 miles to Burton, where it besures rest immediately on a transition rock. The hills comes navigable; and 2 or 3 miles below Burton quits the south-east of Dudley consist of one mass of basalt and county altogether. Its whole length in the county or upon amygdaloid, round which the coal-measures do not crop out, the border (for from the junction of the Mease it is a border as round the limestone, but preserve their usual level in stream separating Derbyshire from Staffordshire) may be approaching it. The basalt is very pure, and is locally estimated at about 50 miles. termed Rowley rag. It is quarried for mending the roads and paving the streets of Birmingham. It is supposed that this mass of trap rock is connected with a vast dyke pene- | trating the carboniferous strata, and overlying (as it is found to do) their edges. Trap rock (greenstone) is found in that part of the coal-field near Walsall; it is apparently part of a thick vertical greenstone dyke, with a wedge-shaped prolongation penetrating the adjacent carboniferous strata. The coal of the southern part of the Dudley field is distinguished by the occurrence of an extensive bed called the Main-coal, 30 feet thick, but this dips to the south, and crops out at Bilston. In the northern part of the field seams of coal are found four, six, and eight feet thick, which appear to be subjacent to the main coal. On the east side of the coal-field, near Walsall, the transition limestone again rises, and the carboniferous beds crop out against it. At Beaudesert, at the northern extremity of the field, cannel coal is obtained. In the northern part of the county another coal-field (the Pottery coal-field) occurs, of triangular form. It extends from Lane-end in the Potteries to Congleton in Cheshire, where is the vertex of the triangle, 13 miles in length from south by east to north by west. Its greatest breadth, which is in the southern part, forming the base of the triangle, is 8 or 10 miles. A short distance to the east of this is the Cheadle coal-field, so called from the town of Cheadle, which lies near its south-western border. This small coalfield appears to be an insulated basin, the strata dipping towards Cheadle as a centre, and resting upon millstone grit. In the southern part, near Cheadle, the coals are thicker and of better quality than in the northern part of the field. From the dip and outcrop of the strata on the northern part of the Pottery coal-field, it appears to be also an insulated basin, but it is not ascertained whether on the south side the strata crop out so as to show this decisively; or whether they are terminated by a fault, or covered by the red-marl and other superior beds. There are thirty-two beds of coal in this field, generally from three to ten feet thick. The principal tributaries of the Trent are the Lyme from Newcastle-under-Lyme, the Sow, the Blyth, the Tame, the Mease, and the Dove. The Lyme joins the Trent on the right bank, not far from its source. The Mease has only a part of its course on the border of the county. The Sow rises about 5 or 6 miles north-west of Eccleshall, near the western border of the county, and flows to that town, near which it receives one or two tributary brooks; it then continues its course 3 or 4 miles to the junction of the Meese brook, which rises near the Sow, and has a course nearly parallel to it, but of rather greater length, and joins it on its left or north-east bank. From the junction of the Meese, the Sow flows, still south-east, 6 miles through the town of Stafford to the junction of the Penk, receiving by the way the Clanford brook on the right bank. The Penk, the most considerable affluent of the Sow, rises a little to the north-west of Wolverhampton, and flows 20 miles northward through Penkridge into the Sow, which it joins on the right bank. From the junction of the Penk, the Sow flows eastward 4 miles into the Trent, which it joins on the right bank. Its whole course is about 19 or 20 miles: it is not navigable. The Blyth rises about four miles east of Hanley in the Potteries, and flows south-south-east 23 or 24 miles into the Trent, which it joins on the left bank, 5 miles below Rugely. The Tame rises in Essington-Wood, 4 miles north-west of Walsall, and flows 15 miles south-east, passing between Walsall and Wednesbury to Aston, a suburb of Birmingham, where it receives on the right bank the brook Rea, which flows through Birmingham itself. From the junction of the Rea the Tame flows eastward 8 miles, to the junction of the united streams of the Cole from Coleshill, 16 miles long, and the Blyth (about the same length) from Solihull, which join the Tame on the right bank. The Tame then turns northward and flows about 19 miles, by Tamworth, where it receives the Anker on the right bank, into the Trent, which it joins on the right bank; its whole course is about 42 miles, partly in Warwickshire, but chiefly in Staffordshire. : |