PERSONS unacquainted with the glaring monstrosities which disfigure the fair face of British legislation would naturally conclude that the said Charles Lennox had either greatly benefitted the coal interest or, at all events, had achieved some very essential service for the country at large, which rendered him a proper recipient of so valuable a gift: they would no doubt, therefore, regret their obliviousness of English history, and ask what the particular service was which Lennox had performed? The answer could not fail to astonish them:- “He was the illegitimate son of the virtuous individual who issued the grant.”*

At length, Parliament interfered, and the right was bought up for the handsome sum of £400,000 in the year 1799;* after which the continued collection of this shilling not only paid the interest of the purchase money at £5 per cent., but, so early as the year 1830, had paid off the purchase money in full, and accumulated a surplus of £341,900!*