TITLES OF HONOUR are designa tions which certain persons are entitled to claim in consequence of possessing cer tain dignities or stations. They vary in a manner corresponding to the variety of the dignities. Thus Emperor, King, Czar, Prince, are titles of honour, and the possessors of these dignities are, by common consent, entitled to be so deno minated, and to be addressed by such terms as Your Majesty and Your Royal Highness. These are the terms used in England, and the phrases in use in other countries of Europe do not much differ from them.
The five orders of nobility in England are distinguished by the respective titles of Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, and Baron : and the persons in whom the dignity of the peerage inheres are entitled to be designated by these words; and if in any legal proceedings they should be otherwise designated, there would be a misnomer by which the proceedings would be vitiated, just as when a private person is wrongly described in an indictment; that is, the law or the custom of the realm guarantees to them the possession of these terms of honour, as it does of the dignities to which they correspond.
The orders of nobility in other Eu ropean countries differ little from our own. They have their Dukes, Marquises, Counts, Viscounts, and Barons.
Another dignity which brings with it the right to a title of honour is that of knighthood. [KNIGHT.] The Baronet, which is a new dignity, originated in the reign of James I. [RsaoNET.] Besides these, there are the ecclesias tical dignities of Bishop and Archbishop, which bring with them the right to cer tain titles of honour besides the phrases by which the dignity itself is designated. And custom seems to have sanctioned the claim of the persons who possess inferior dignities in the church to certain honour able titles, and it is usual to bestow on all persons who are admitted into the clerical order the title of Reverend, a title which was formerly given to others quite as ap propriately, to judges for instance. •
There are also academical distinctions which are of the nature of titles of honour, although they are not usually considered to fall under the denomination. Munici pal offices have also titles accompanying them ; and in the law there are eminent offices the names of which become titles of honour to the possessors of them, and which bring with them the right to cer tain terms of distinction.
All titles of honour appear to have been originally names of office. The earl in England had in former ages substan tial duties to perform in his county, as the sheriff (the Vice-Comes or Vice-Earl) has now ; but the name has remained now that the peculiar duties are gone, and, so it is with respect to other dignities.
Some of these dignities acd the titles I correspondent to them are hereditary. Se were the eminent offices which they designate in the remote ages, when there were duties to be performed. Hence hereditary titles.
The distinction which the possession of titles of honour gives in society has aiways made them objects of ambition. Such titles exist even in democratical states, as in the United States of North America ; but they are only temporary and annexed to certain offices, as that of President. The hereditary nature of most of the chief titles of honour in Eu ropean states gives them a different cha racter.
Whoever wishes to study this subject will do well to resort to two great works: one, the late Reports of the Lords' Com mittees on the dignity of the Peerage ;' the other, the large treatise on Titles of honour,' by the learned Selden. The latter was first printed in 4to., 1614; again, with large additions, folio, 1631.