ESQUIRES AND GENTLEMEN. BELOW the rank of Nobility, and titles personal or official, it has ever been difficult to assign the proper steps and degrees of worth and precedence. The times are past for adjusting such matters by a "Were" or " Weregeld," which was the name given to the fine paid by our ancestors, for causing the death of any person, and which was supposed to express the comparative value of the life lost, and to be paid accordingly to the relations of the deceased, for the injury they had sustained. There were for instance, as our antiquarians tell us, very different fines exacted for " Twelf-hinds,' Six-hinds," and "Twihinds." The "Were" of a Twelfhind, was (as the terms import) double that of a Sixhind, and equal to that of six Ceorls or Twihinds. Their wives were estimated according to similar rates, as Cyrlisca's, Sexhinda's, and Twelfhinha's. These "weres" had respect to more offences than the |