第15章

ON SOME RESPECTABLE SNOBS

Look at the next house to Lady Susan Scraper's.The first mansion with the awning over the door: that canopy will be let down this evening for the comfort of the friends of Sir Alured and Lady S.de Mogyns, whose parties are so much admired by the public, and the givers themselves.

Peach-coloured liveries laced with silver, and pea-green plush inexpressibles, render the De Mogyns' flunkeys the pride of the ring when they appear in Hyde Park where Lady de Mogyns, as she sits upon her satin cushions, with her dwarf spaniel in her arms, bows to the very selectest of the genteel.Times are altered now with Mary Anne, or, as she calls herself, Marian de Mogyns.

She was the daughter of Captain Flack of the Rathdrum Fencibles, who crossed with his regiment over from Ireland to Caermarthenshire ever so many years ago, and defended Wales from the Corsican invader.The Rathdrums were quartered at Pontydwdlm, where Marian wooed and won her De Mogyns, a young banker in the place.His attentions to Miss Flack at a race ball were such that her father said De Mogyns must either die on the field of honour, or become his son-in-law.He preferred marriage.

His name was Muggins then, and his father--a flourishing banker, army-contractor, smuggler, and general jobber--almost disinherited him on account of this connection.

There is a story that Muggins the Elder was made a baronet for having lent money to a R-y-l p-rs-n-ge.I do not believe it.The R-y-l Family always paid their debts, from the Prince of Wales downwards.

Howbeit, to his life's end he remained simple Sir Thomas Muggins, representing Pontydwdlm in Parliament for many years after the war.The old banker died in course of time, and to use the affectionate phrase common on such occasions, 'cut up' prodigiously well.His son, Alfred Smith Mogyns, succeeded to the main portion of his wealth, and to his titles and the bloody hand of his scutcheon.It was not for many years after that he appeared as Sir Alured Mogyns Smyth de Mogyns, with a genealogy found out for him by the Editor of 'Fluke's Peerage,' and which appears as follows in that work:- 'De Mogyns.--Sir Alured Mogyns Smyth, Second Baronet.This gentleman is a representative of one of the most ancient families of Wales, who trace their descent until it is lost in the mists of antiquity.A genealogical tree beginning with Shem is in the possession of the family, and is stated by a legend of many thousand years' date to have been drawn on papyrus by a grandson of the patriarch himself.Be this as it may, there can be no doubt of the immense antiquity of the race of Mogyns.

'In the time of Boadicea, Hogyn Mogyn, of the hundred Beeves, was a suitor and a rival of Caractacus for the hand of that Princess.He was a person gigantic in stature, and was slain by Suetonius in the battle which terminated the liberties of Britain.From him descended directly the Princes of Pontydwdlm, Mogyn of the Golden Harp (see the Mabinogion of Lady Charlotte Guest,) Bogyn-Merodac-ap-Mogyn, (the black fiend son of Mogyn,) and a long list of bards and warriors, celebrated both in Wales and Armorica.The independent Princes of Mogyn long held out against the ruthless Kings of England, until finally Gam Mogyns made his submission to Prince Henry, son of Henry IV., and under the name of Sir David Gam de Mogyns, was distinguished at the battle of Agincourt.

>From him the present Baronet is descended.(And here the descent follows in order until it comes to) Thomas Muggins, first Baronet of Pontydwdlm Castle, for 23 years Member of Parliament for that borough, who had issue, Alured Mogyns Smyth, the present Baronet, who married Marian, daughter of the late general P.Flack, of Ballyflack, in the Kingdom of Ireland of the Counts Flack of the H.R.Empire.Sir Alured has issue, Alured Caradoc, born 1819, Marian, 1811, Blanche Adeliza, Emily Doria, Adelaide Obleans, Katinka Rostopchin, Patrick Flack, died 1809.

'Arms--a mullion garbled, gules on a saltire reversed of the second.Crest--a tom-tit rampant regardant.Motto--UNG ROY UNG MOGYNS.'

It was long before Lady de Mogyns shone as a star in the fashionable world.At first, poor Muggins was the in the hands of the Flacks, the Clancys, the Tooles, the Shanahans, his wife's Irish relations; and whilst he was yet but heir-apparent, his house overflowed with claret and the national nectar, for the benefit of Hibernian relatives.Tom Tufto absolutely left the street in which they lived in London, because he said 'it was infected with such a confounded smell of whisky from the house of those IWISH people.'