of Bachygraig was dead, and Sir Robert Salusbury Cotton said he longed to kiss his sister and the little girl; to whom he was perhaps more willing to attach himself, as he had no progeny, and his only brother had married, not much to please him, a portionless cousin of his own; Miss Cotton, of Etwall and Belleport, by whom he had many children, among which two only were favourites at Lleweney. An invitation followed, and we came to the Old Hall hung round with armour, which struck my infant eyes with wonder and delight.

My uncle soon began to dote on Fiddle, as he called me in fondness; and I certainly did not obtain his love. by flattery, as I remember well this odd tête-à-tête conversation:

"Come now, dear," said he, "that we are quite alone, tell me what you expected to see here at Llewenney." "I expected," replied I, "to see an old baronet." "Well, in that your expectation is not much disappointed; but why did you think of such stuff?" "Why just because papa and mamma was always saying to me and to one another at Bodvel, what the old baronet would think of this and that: they did it to frighten me I see now; but I thought to myself that kings and princes were but men, and God made them you know, Sir, and they made old baronets." Incomparable Fiddle," exclaimed my uncle-"you will see a Mr. and Mrs. Clough at dinner to-day: do you know how to spell Clough ?" "No," was the reply; "I never heard the name; but if it had been spelt like buff, you would

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not have asked me the question. They write it perhaps as we write enough-c, 1, o, u, g, h."

What baby anecdotes are these, you cry. 'Tis so, but your poor friend certainly ceased being in any wise a wonder after she was five years old, at which period we left Wales and came to my uncle's house in Albemarle Street, where he told my mother he should follow in less than two months; make a new will, and leave poor Fiddle 10,000l., having understood that my parents had by their marriage settlement agreed to entail the old Bachygraig Estate on Thomas Salusbury, brother to papa, and then a doctor in the Commons; and on his sons, rather than their own daughter, if they had no male heir. I fancy some rough words passed concerning this. My uncle certainly but ill brooked my father's pride, and he still less willingly endured being informed that, if his quality friends would provide him some distant establishment, my mother and myself should share the old baronet's fortune. "No, no, Sir Robert," was the haughty answer, "if I go for a soldier, your sister shall carry the knapsack, and the little wench may have what I can work for." I have heard that our parting soon followed this conversation, and scarce were my infantine tears dried for leaving dear Llewenney and my half-adored uncle, before the news reached London of his sudden death by an apoplectic fit; in consequence of which, his brother, Sir Lynch Salusbury Cotton, came into everything by a temporary will kept in case of accidents till one more copious and correct should be formed.

Some traces yet remain upon my mind of poor

mamma's anguish and of my father's violent expressions. She has related to me his desperate engagement with some quacks and projectors who pretended to find lead on his encumbered estate, whilst we remained in town, and I became a favourite with the Duke and Duchess of Leeds, where I recollect often meeting the famous actor Mr. Quin, who taught me to speak Satan's speech to the sun in "Paradise Lost.” When they took me to see him act Cato, I remember making him a formal courtesy, much to the Duchess's amusement, perhaps to that of the player. I was just six years old, and we sate in the stage-box, where I kept on studying the part with all my little power, not at all distracted by the lights or company, which they fancied would take The fireworks for the peace attention. my of Aix-la-Chapelle were the next sights my fancy was impressed with. We sate on a terrace belonging to the Hills of Tern—now Lord Berwick's family,-and David Garrick was there, and made me sit on his lap, feeding me with cates, &c.; because having asked some one who sate near why they called those things that blew up, Gerbes in the bill of fare, I answered, " Because they are like wheat-sheaves, you see, and Gerbe is a wheatsheaf in French."

When Garrick was intimate at Streatham Park more than twenty years afterwards, he did not like that story: it made him look older, at least feel older, than he wished, I suppose.

Lord Halifax was now, or soon after, head of the Board of Trade, and wished to immortalise his name

he had no sons-by colonising Nova Scotia. Cornwallis and my father, whom he patronised, were sent out, the first persons in every sense of the word; and poor dear mamma was left sine pane almost, I believe, certainly sine nummo, with her odd little charge, a girl without a guinea, whose mind however she ceased not to cultivate in every possible manner. For French, writing, and arithmetic, I had no instructor but herself; and when she went from home where I could not be taken, my temporary abode was the great school in Queen Square, where Mrs. Dennis and her brother, the Admiral Sir Peter Dennis, said I was qualified, at eight years old, for teacher rather than learner; and he actually did instruct me in the rudiments of navigation, as the globes were already familiar to me. The smallpox, however, and measles, interrupted my studies for awhile, when my Grandmother Cotton invited my mother and myself to spend a summer in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, where she had a fine country-seat called East Hyde, not far from Luton, to which I made reference in "Retrospection" (vol. ii. p. 434). This lady, daughter to Sir Thomas Lynch, after whom I was named, had possessed an immense fortune in Jamaica; but being left an orphan at five years old, was, as she always said and I believe, purchased of Lord Torrington her mother's brother, by Sir Robert Salusbury Cotton for his son Thomas, the child he educated himself in the Tower of London, when confined there on account of his correspondence with the Electress Sophia.*

* Sir William Wraxall, in his Historical Memoirs (vol. i. p. 304),

A

Certain it is that Lady Cotton was scarce fifteen years older than her own eldest son, my dear Uncle Robert, husband of Lady Betty Tollemache; which she considered as little to the honour of her father-in-law who, she believed, obtained her fortune to his family by any means he could.

She had made a second choice when left a widow at thirty-seven years old, with many children, all mortally offended at her marrying again; but Captain King was dead, and they were reconciled at the time I am speaking of. At East Hyde I learned to love horses; and when my mother hoped I was gaining health by the fresh air, I was kicking my heels on a corn binn, and

On

in reference to the adventures of the Stuart family, relates an extraordinary anecdote about the destroying of the correspondence of the Electress Sophia with the Court of St. Germains. "It ought not to surprise us (he says) on full consideration that Sophia should feel the warmest attachment to James the Second." this Mrs. Piozzi remarks in the margin: -"It surprises me, because my own great-grandfather was put into the Tower, for corresponding with the Electress, by James the Second; and, being permitted to have any one of his family with him, chose a little boy, whom he taught to read and write there. My greatgrandmother used to walk on Tower Hill till she saw her husband's signal poked out of some grated window. She was, by birth, Hester Salusbury, of Llewenney, and married to Sir Robert Cotton, of Combermere. I have seen, when a child, some of the Electress's letters signed Sophia. I remember nothing of them, but my uncle said they were full of Latin quotations: his son, father to Lord Combermere, burned them. I have looked in Lord Orford's miscellaneous works, and perceive that he and my friend Wraxall are of a mind about Sophia, of whose letters I can recollect only the odd signature, writing her name with a long; but my cousin was a strange fellow to throw them into the fire."