Unless the authenticity of certain documents in my possession be disputed, I descend lineally from Noah; though time or carelessness have so injured the parchment, that it is impossible to discern whether my more immediate progenitor was Shem, Ham or Japhet. It would be easy to go further back, but his posterity have no reason to be proud of Adam, and little to thank him for. His chief merit seems to have been possession of the largest landed property ever owned by man. In heraldry he would not be reckoned a gentleman, and he was most probably hen-pecked.”for more click here
