In the eighteenth century a man was killed in the streets of Morpeth, for maintaining that the blood of the Dacres was as good as that of the Ogles. Of the excellence of the latter, Shadwell entertained very exalted ideas. In 1680 there was living, and in the same year died, the Earl of Ogle, to whom was contracted in her infancy the famous Lady Elizabeth, sole heiress of the last of the Earls of Northumberland. Her subsequent contract with Tom Thynne led to the murder of the latter by Count Königsmark. In the year above-mentioned, Shadwell produced at Dorset Gardens, and published, his "Woman Captain," in dedicating which to the Earl of Ogle, the Marquis of Newcastle's son, Shadwell says, "one virtue of your Lordship's I am too much pleased with not to mention, which is, that in this age, when learning is grown contemptible to those who ought most to advance it, and Greek and Latin sense is despised, and French and English nonsense applauded, when the ancient nobility and gentry of England, who not long since were famous for their learning, have now sent into the world a certain kind of spurious brood of illiterate and degenerate youth, your Lordship dares love books, and labours to have learning." This is fine testimony and not flattery to one of the most promising young gentlemen of the day. His child-wife subsequently married the proudest of dukes, and Swift has immortalised the red-haired beauty as "the d----d Duchess of Somerset!" In one of the greatest of moral writers,--the Rev. Dr. Young, we meet with one of the most fulsome of adulators. This divine dedicated his "Revenge" to his friend Philip, Duke of Wharton, the most profligate and unprincipled, but one of the most accomplished men of his age. Young assures us that his Grace leads a virtuous pastoral life, such as your town rakes know nothing of; that his is given to study, and that he is a perfect master of all history, as well as of many languages; that he is as well skilled in men as in books, and that he "can carry from his studies such a life into conversation, that wine seems only an interruption to wit." The Duke has, we are told, "so sweet a disposition that no one ever wished his abilities less, but such as flattered themselves with the hope of shining when near him." The poet even makes the peer his _collaborateur_ in the piece, and acknowledges that he not only "suggested the most beautiful incident, but made all possible provision for the success of the whole."