has indeed been materially altered by the Stat. 3 and 4 Will. 4, c. 106; but though the half-blood is not excluded, it is enacted that a relation of the whole-blood, and his or her issue, shall be preferred to a relation of the same degree of the half-blood, and his or her issue.
The term half-blood appears from a passage in Shakspeare's King Lear, Act V., Scene 3, to have been used in a depreciatory sense. The term half-blooded is applied by the Duke of Albany to Edmund, the bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester.
"Alb.—The let-alone lies not in your goodwill.
"Edm.—Nor in thine, lord.
"Alb.— Half-blooded fellow, yes."
The descendants of the first marriage of the Leicestershire knight and the inheritor of the estate of Brookesley, might look upon their half-blood relations of the second marriage with a feeling the reverse of pride, notwithstanding the wealth and titles of honour they had received from a court of which it might be said, as has been said of the Roman Republic, its enmity might be dangerous, but its friendship was fatal—none ever escaped with life and honour from that deadly embrace.
