But Electoral Policy has ever been obsequious to the court of Vienna, and forgets the insolence with which count Colloredo left England. Upon a principle of dignity and œconomy, lord Stormont, a Scottish peer of the loyal house of Murray, kissed his majesty's hand, I think, on Wednesday in the Easter week; but this ignominious act has not yet disgraced the nation in the London Gazette. The ministry are not ashamed of doing the thing in private; they are only afraid of the publication. Was it a tender regard for the honour of the late king, or of his present majesty, that invited to court lord George Sackville, in these first days of Peace, to share in the general satisfaction, which all good courtiers received in the indignity offered to lord Ligonier, and on the

advancement of -? Was this to shew princely gratitude

to the eminent services of the accomplished general of the house of Brunswic, who has had so great a share in rescuing Europe from the yoke of France; and whose nephew we hope soon to see made happy in the possession of the most amiable princess in the world? Or, is it meant to assert the honour of the crown only against the united wishes of a loyal and affectionate people, founded in a happy experience of the talents, ability, integrity, and virtue of those, who have had the glory of redeeming their country from bondage and ruin, in order to support, by every art of corruption and intimidation, a weak, disjointed, incapable set of-I will call them any thing but ministers-by whom the Favourite still meditates to rule this kingdom with a rod of iron.

The Stuart line has ever been intoxicated with the slavish doctrines of the absolute, independent, unlimited power of the crown. Some of that line were so weakly advised, as to endeavour to reduce them into practice: but the English nation was too spirited to suffer the least encroachment on the ancient liberties of this kingdom. "The King of England "is only the first magistrate of this country; but is invested "by law with the whole executive power. He is, however, responsible to his people for the due execution of the royal "functions, in the choice of ministers, &c. equally with the "meanest of his subjects in his particular duty." The personal character of our present amiable sovereign makes us casy and happy that so great a power is lodged in such hands; but the favourite has given too just cause for him to escape the general odium. The prerogative of the crown is to exert the constitutional powers entrusted to it in a way, not of blind favour and partiality, but of wisdom and judgment. This is the spirit of our constitution. The people too have their prerogative, and, I hope, the fine words of DRYDEN will be engraven on our hearts,

Freedom is the English subject's Prerogative.

It was in the first year of the reign of George III. that Rousseau, in France, published his "Nouvelle Héloise," and in 1762 appeared his "Contrat Social " and his "Emile." These books energetically represented one side of the reaction that grew yearly in power until, in 1789, the great French Revolution gave warning to Europe of the force it had acquired. Impatience of authority supported by and supporting dead forms of social, political, and even religious life, became in fervid minds an impatience of all authority as force from without controlling impulses of nature from within.

An unsubstantial sentiment served

In the first speech of James I. to his English parliament, March 22, 1603, are the following words, That I am a SERVANT is most true-I will never be ashamed to confess it. My principal honour, to be the GREAT SERVANT of the commonwealth. Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. I. p. 145.

for the life of no small part of literature. Its origin was a disease of the soul in men of genius that became epidemic, spread like the Black Death in the Middle Ages, prostrated the weak minds, and laid hold especially upon the young. Like epidemics of a physical disease, its cause was to be found in unwholesome conditions of life. The cleverest man in England who became a victim to this epidemica clever man morally weak-was Laurence Sterne, whose "Sentimental Journey" appeared in the year of his death, 1768, and is clearly a product of those tendencies of thought which had been represented partly by the writings of Rousseau. Sterne's “Tristram Shandy" was appearing in the first year of the reign of George III., and in its whimsical irregu larities Sterne followed a rule of his time by defying rule.

His

Laurence Sterne was born in Clonmel Barracks on the 24th of November, 1713. Roger, his father, was a lieutenant in the 34th Foot, and grandson to Richard Sterne, who died Archbishop of York in 1683. Laurence's grandfather had been eldest son of the archbishop, a Simon Sterne, who married Mary Jaques, heiress of Elvington, five miles from York. Roger Sterne was the seventh child of Simon. eldest brother, Richard, was heir of Elvington, and lived at Woodhouse, also his property, a mile and a half out of Halifax. The second son of the family was Jaques Sterne, who throve by church interest, and died an archdeacon in 1759. In 1711, when he was with the army in Flanders, Roger Sterne, then an ensign with 3s. 24d. a day for his pay, married Agnes, widow of Captain Hebert, and daughter of an Irish army sutler. The first child of the marriage, Mary, was born at Lisle in July, 1712. Then followed Laurence, in November, 1713, when the regiment was in barracks at Clonmel. It was the year of the Peace of Utrecht. All regiments raised since the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, except two, were broken. Roger Sterne's regiment was disbanded, and he went home with his two babies to Yorkshire. After a few months the regiment was established again, and Ensign Sterne, with his family, joined it at Dublin in the winter of 1714. Presently they moved with the regiment to Exeter. A third child, named Joram, was born. After about a year at Exeter, they returned to Dublin, and Roger Sterne there ceasing to live in barrack, furnished a house, and occupied it three years. ordered to join the Vigo expedition. small-pox; a girl, Anne, was born. for a time in the Isle of Wight, then low Barracks, where, in 1720, a son, Devisher, was born. For six months the family lived with a relation of Mrs. Sterne's who was vicar of Anamoe, seven miles from Wicklow. In 1721 they were for a year in Dublin Barracks, where the child Anne died. In 1724 a Catherine was born, who survived, with Mary and Laurence, the youngest and two eldest. Mary afterwards married a scamp, of whom her brother tells that he "used her unmercifully, spent his subsistence, became a bankrupt, and left my poor sister to shift for herself, which she was able to do but for a few months; for she went to a friend's house in the country, and died of a broken

He was then Joram died of The family was went to Wick

heart; " that is to say, died unhappy. In 1725 Ensign Sterne got leave of absence to take his son Laurence, then eleven or twelve years old, to school at Halifax, near which town Richard, the eldest of Laurence's uncles, lived at Woodhouse as head of the family, a gentleman of means. In 1727 Laurence's father went to Jamaica, and his son saw him no more. While in Jamaica he died of yellow fever, in March, 1731. In 1732 Laurence's uncle Richard sent him, aged eighteen or nineteen, to Jesus College, Cambridge, as a sizar. While at Cambridge there was the first distinct evidence of that disease of the lungs which thenceforth sapped his life. He was small and thin, he spat blood at college, and a cough afterwards stuck by him. Having taken his B.A. degree, Laurence Sterne was ordained deacon in 1736, priest in August, 1738, and in the same month, through family influence, as great-grandson of a preceding Archbishop of York, he obtained the vicarage of Sutton-on-the-Forest, which was in the gift of the Archbishop of that day. His uncle Jaques was then Canon Residentiary, Prebendary, and Precentor of York Minster, and held two small Yorkshire rectories. He had at York a bachelor house in the Minster Yard, and Laurence's uncle Richard had also a house in Castlegate. In 1740 Laurence Sterne graduated as M.A., and in 1741, after two years' courtship, he married Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Mr. Lumley, rector of Bedal, Staffordshire. Sterne was then in his twentyeighth year. His bride had been lodging in York, and was in ill-health. In the same year he obtained one of the twenty-six prebends in York Minster, with £40 a year and a house in Stonegate. His wife had also £40 a year, and a friend with the gift of York preferment in his power. Sterne had a taste

for playing the bass viol, and for drawing. In 1743 came the gift from his wife's friend of the prebendal stall and living of Stillington, worth about £50 a year. In 1745 a first daughter was born, and named Lydia. She was born and baptised on the 1st of October, and died on the 2nd. Laurence Sterne had genius with a weakness of character, due partly to a shifty home-life and imperfect training in his earlier years, and partly to the weakness of his body. He yielded himself to the influences of his time, and in this earlier part of his career, when there was open way for him in the Church, one of his chief friends was Hall Stevenson, of Skelton Castle, near Guisbro', who in the name of wit defied decency. Sterne's letters show that he weakly accommodated his own wit to the tone of his friend's. It was the price paid for the flattery he prized. Sterne's mother, who kept a school, was ruined by the extravagance of her daughter Catherine, and saved from gaol by a subscription among parents of pupils. Sterne was estranged from his sister. In December, 1747, a daughter was again born to Sterne, and again named Lydia. She was his only child, and she survived him. In 1758 Sterne's mother was at York, and he was helping to arrange her affairs. At the same time he was weakly sentimentalising with a Miss Catherine de Fourmentelle. His was a very weak form of the sentimental epidemic, as writing of his like this may show: "Whenever it falls out that an

earthly goddess is so much this and that and t'other, that I cannot eat my breakfast for her, and that she careth not three-halfpence whether I eat any breakfast or no, curse on her; and so I send her to Tartary, and from Tartary to Terra del Fuego, &c. But as the heart is tender, and the passions in those tides ebb and flow ten times in a minute, I instantly bring her back again." In 1758, also, there broke out at York a controversy as to the right of a Dr. Topham's son to the inheritance of a patent office in the cathedral. The Rev. Laurence Sterne took part in the controversy with a humorous pamphlet that figured the office in question as "The Good Warm Watch-coat." It was published in 1759. In the same year he had begun "Tristram Shandy." On the 77th page of the first volume thereof he speaks of a remark as struck out "on this very rainy day, March 26, 1759, between nine and ten in the morning." At the end of December, 1759, Sterne's age then being 46, the first section of "Tristram Shandy" was published at York in two volumes for five shillings. There was much local satire, and in a couple of days two hundred copies were sold in the town. Sterne sent copies to London, took what measures he could to make his book known to the larger public, and in March, 1760, went himself to London to look after it. He took lodgings in Pall Mall, which he described as "the genteelest in town," and wrote letters to Miss Fourmentelle as "Dear, dear Jenny." "Tristram

Shandy" rose into fame, and gave its name to a new game of cards. Sterne was to be seen at Ranelagh Gardens, sat for his portrait to Sir Joshua Reynolds, made friendly acquaintance with David Garrick, and with Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, who called him the English Rabelais. The poet Gray wrote "one is invited to dinner where he dines a fortnight beforehand." But Oliver Goldsmith, who was then writing the "Citizen of the World," condemned the large alloy of base metal that is in "Tristram Shandy" blended with the true. Many of Sterne's readers in those days enjoyed as wit what Goldsmith rightly described as indecency and pertness, and it still needs more thought than commonly goes with the act of reading to distinguish the wheat from the chaff where both abound. Sterne failed through weakness of character to make the best use of his talent. Through the same weakness of character his life became a wreck. He craved for the wretched flatteries of the frivolous, sunk to the position of a piece of fashionable dinner furniture, and having taken to himself out of Hamlet the name of Yorick, and written a fancy sketch of himself under that name in his first volumes of "Tristram Shandy," he announced, together with the second edition of those volumes, "The Sermons of Mr. Yorick." This is Sterne's suggestion of an ideal for himself as

YORICK.

Yorick was this parson's name, and what is very remarkable in it, (as appears from a most antient account of the family wrote upon strong vellum, and now in perfect preservation) it had been exactly so spelt for near,—I was within an ace of saying, nine hundred years;-but I would not

shake my credit in telling an improbable truth, however indisputable in itself;-and therefore I shall content myself with only saying,-it had been exactly so spelt, without the least variation or transposition of a single letter, for I do not know how long; which is more than I would venture to say of one-half of the best surnames in the kingdom; which, in a course of years, have generally undergone as many chops and changes as their owners.—— -Has this been owing to the pride, or to the shame of their respective proprietors?-In honest truth, I think sometimes to the one and sometimes to the other, just as the temptation has wrought. But a villainous affair it is, and will one day so blend and confound us all together, that no one shall be able to stand up and swear, "that his own great-grand-father was the man who did either this or that."

This evil had been sufficiently fenced against by the prudent care of the Yorick family, and their religious preservation of these records I quote, which do further inform us, that the family was originally of Danish extraction, and had been transplanted into England as early as in the reign of Horwendillus, king of Denmark, in whose court it seems, an ancestor of this Mr. Yorick's, and from whom he was lineally descended, held a considerable post to the day of his death. Of what nature this considerable post was, this record saith not,-it only adds, That for near two centuries, it had been totally abolished as altogether unnecessary, not only in that court, but in every other court in the Christian world.

It has often come into my head, that this post could be no other than that of the king's chief Jester:-and that Hamlet's Yorick in our Shakespeare, many of whose plays, you know, are founded upon authenticated facts,-was certainly the very

man.

I have not the time to look into Saxo Grammaticus's Danish history, to know the certainty of this;-but if you have leisure, and can easily get at the book, you may do it full as well yourself.

I had just time in my travels through Denmark with Mr. Noddy's eldest son, whom, in the year 1741, I accompanied as governor, riding along with him at a prodigious rate thro' most parts of Europe, and of which original journey performed by us two, a most delectable narrative will be given in the progress of this work. I had just time, I say, and that was all, to prove the truth of an observation made by a long sojourner in that country;-namely, "That nature was neither very lavish, nor was she very stingy in her gifts of genius and capacity to its inhabitants;-but, like a discreet parent, was moderately kind to them all; observing such an equal tenor in the distribution of her favours, as to bring them, in those points, pretty near to a level with each other; so that you will meet with few instances in that kingdom of refin'd parts; but a great deal of good plain houshold understanding amongst all ranks of people, of which every body has a share;" which is, I think, very right.

With us, you see, the case is quite different ;- --we are all ups and downs in this matter;-you are a great genius;

-or 'tis fifty to one, sir, you are a great dunce and a blockhead;-not that there is a total want of intermediate steps,-no,-we are not so irregular as that comes to;-but the two extremes are more common, and in a greater degree in this unsettled island, where nature in her gifts and dispositions of this kind, is most whimsical and capricious; fortune herself, not being more so in the bequest of her goods and chattels than she.

This is all that ever stagger'd my faith in regard to Yorick's extraction, who, by what I can remember of him, and by all the accounts I could ever get of him, seemed not

to have had one single drop of Danish blood in his whole crasis; in nine hundred years it might possibly have all run out:-I will not philosophize one moment with you about it; for happen how it would, the fact was this:- -That instead of that cold phlegm and exact regularity of sense and humours, you would have look'd for in one so extracted, -he was on the contrary, as mercurial and sublimated a composition, as heteroclite a creature in all his declensions

-with as much life, and whim, and gaité de cœur about him, as the kindliest climate could have engendered and put together. With all this sail, poor Yorick carried not one ounce of ballast; he was utterly unpractised in the world; and at the age of twenty-six, knew just about as well how to steer his course in it, as a romping unsuspicious girl of thirteen: So that upon his first setting out, the brisk gale of his spirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul ten times in a-day of some body's tackling; and as the grave and more slow-paced were oftenest in his way, you may likewise imagine 'twas with such he generally had the ill luck to get the most entangled. For aught I know, there might be some mixture of unlucky wit at the bottom of such fracas -For, to speak the truth, Yorick had an invincible dislike and opposition in his nature to gravity;-not to gravity as such-for where gravity was wanted, he would be the most grave and serious of mortal men for days and weeks together;

-but he was an enemy to the affectation of it, and declared open war against it, only as it appeared a cloke for ignorance, or for folly; and then, whenever it fell in his way, however sheltered and protected, he seldom gave it much quarter.

Sometimes, in his wild way of talking, he would say, that gravity was an arrant scoundrel; and he would add,-of the most dangerous kind too,- -because a sly one; and that he verily believed, more honest well-meaning people were bubbled out of their goods and money by it in one twelvemonth, than by pocket-picking and shop-lifting in seven. In the naked temper which a merry heart discovered, he would say, there was no danger-but to itself:-whereas the very essence of gravity was design, and consequently deceit;'twas a taught trick, to gain credit of the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth; and that, with all its pretensions,-it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it, viz. A mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind;--which definition of gravity, Yorick, with great imprudence, would say, deserved to be wrote in letters of gold.

But, in plain truth, he was a man unkackneyed and unpractised in the world, and was altogether as indiscreet and foolish on every other subject of discourse, where policy is wont to impress restraint. Yorick had no impression but one, and that was what arose from the nature of the deed spoken of; which impression he would usually translate into plain English without any periphrasis,- -and too oft without much distinction of either personage, time, or place; --so that when mention was made of a pitiful or an ungenerous proceeding,-he never gave himself a moment's time to reflect who was the Hero of the piece-what his station or how far he had power to hurt him hereafter; but if it was a dirty action,-without more ado,-The man was a dirty fellow-and so on. And as his comments had usually the ill fate to be terminated either in a bon mot, or to be enlivened throughout with some drollery or humour of expression, it gave wings to Yorick's indiscretion. In a word, though he never sought, yet at the same time, as he seldom shunned occasions of saying what came uppermost, and without much ceremony,--he had but too many temptations in life, of scattering his wit and his

humour, his gibes and his jests about him. They were not lost for want of gathering.

What were the consequences, and what was Yorick's catastrophe thereupon, you will read in the next chapter.

The Mortgager and the Mortgagee differ the one from the other, not more in length of purse, than the Jester and Jestee do in that of memory. But in this the comparison between them runs, as the scholiasts call it, upon all four; which, by the bye, is upon one or two legs more, than some of the best of Homer's can pretend to ;-namely, That the one raises a sum and the other a laugh at your expence, and think no more about it. Interest, however, still runs on in both cases; the periodical or accidental payments of it, just serving to keep the memory of the affair alive; till at length, in some evil hour-pop comes the creditor upon each, and by demanding principal upon the spot, together with full interest to the very day, makes them both feel the full extent of their obligations.

As the reader (for I hate your ifs) has a thorough knowledge of human nature, I need not say more to satisfy him, that my Hero could not go on at this rate, without some slight experience of these incidental memento's. To speak the truth, he had wantonly involved himself in a multitude of small book debts of this stamp, which, notwithstanding Eugenius's frequent advice, he too much disregarded; thinking that as not one of them was contracted thro' any malignancy-but, on the contrary, from an honesty of mind, and a mere jocundity of humour, they would all of them be crossed out in course.

Eugenius would never admit this, and would often tell him, that one day or other he would certainly be reckoned with; and he would often add in an accent of sorrowful apprehension-to the uttermost mite. To which Yorick, with his usual carelessness of heart, would as often answer with a pshaw ! -and if the subject was started in the fields with a hop, skip, and a jump, at the end of it; but if close pent up in the social chimney corner, where the culprit was barricado'd in, with a table and a couple of arm chairs, and could not so readily fly off in a tangent,--Eugenius would then go on with his lecture upon discretion, in words to this purpose, though somewhat better put together.

Trust me, dear Yorick, this unwary pleasantry of thine will sooner or later bring thee into scrapes and difficulties, which no after-wit can extricate thee out of.-In these sallies, too oft, I see it happens, that a person laughed at, considers himself in the light of a person injured, with all the rights of such a situation belonging to him; and when thou viewest him in that light too, and reckonest up his friends, his family, his kindred, and allies,—and musterest up with them the many recruits which will list under him from a sense of common danger;-'tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes,-thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thy ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so.

I cannot suspect it in the man whom I esteem, that there is the least spur from spleen or malevolence of intent in these sallies, I believe and know them to be truly honest and sportive-but consider, my dear lad, that fools cannot distinguish this, and that knaves will not; and thou knowest not what it is, either to provoke the one, or to make merry with the other;-whenever they associate for mutual defence, depend upon it, they will carry on the war in such a manner against thee, my dear friend, as to make thee heartily sick of it, and of thy life too.

REVENGE from some baneful corner shall level a tale of dishonour at thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set right.- -The fortunes of thy house shall totter, thy character, which led the way to them, shall bleed on every side of it,-thy faith questioned,―thy works belied,- -thy wit forgotten,-thy learning trampled on. To wind up the last scene of thy tragedy, CRUELTY and COWARDICE, twin-ruffians, hired and set on by MALICE in the dark, shall strike together at all thy infirmities and mistakes: -the best of us, my dear lad, lie open there;-and trust me, -trust me, Yorick, When to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon, that an innocent and an helpless creature shall be sacrificed, 'tis an easy matter to pick up sticks enow from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a fire to offer it up with. Yorick scarce ever heard this sad vaticination of his destiny read over to him, but with a tear stealing from his eye, and a promissory look attending it, that he was resolved, for the time to come, to ride his tit with more sobriety.- -But, alas, too late!-a grand confederacy, with ***** and at the head of it, was formed before the first prediction of it. -The whole plan of the attack, just as Eugenius had foreboded, was put in execution all at once,—with so little mercy on the side of the allies,-and so little suspicion in Yorick, of what was carrying on against him-that when he thought, good easy man! full surely preferment was o'ripening,— they had smote his root, and then he fell, as many a worthy man had fallen before him.

Yorick, however, fought it out with all imaginable gallantry for some time; till, over-power'd by numbers, and worn out at length by the calamities of the war,but more so, by the ungenerous manner in which it was carried on, he threw down the sword; and though he kept up his spirits in appearance to the last,-he died, nevertheless, as was generally thought, quite broken hearted.

What inclined Eugenius to the same opinion was as follows:

A few hours before Yorick breathed his last, Eugenius stept in with an intent to take his last sight and last farewell of him: Upon his drawing Yorick's curtain, and asking how he felt himself, Yorick, looking up in his face, took hold of his hand;--and, after thanking him for the many tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he said, if it was their fate to meet hereafter,--he would thank him again and again, he told him he was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip for ever.-I hope not, answered Eugenius, with tears trickling down his cheeks, and with the tenderest tone that ever man spoke,-I hope not, Yorick, said he. -Yorick replied, with a look up, and a gentle squeeze of Eugenius's hand, and that was all,-but it cut Eugenius to his heart.-Come,-come, Yorick, quoth Eugenius, wiping his eyes, and summoning up the man within him, my dear lad, be comforted,-let not all thy spirits and fortitude forsake thee at this crisis, when thou most wantest them;-who knows what resources are in store, and what the power of God may yet do for thee ?--Yorick laid his hand upon his heart, and gently shook his head.---For my part, continued Eugenius, crying bitterly as he uttered the words,—I declare I know not, Yorick, how to part with thee,▬▬▬▬▬and would gladly flatter my hopes, added Eugenius, chearing up his voice, that there is still enough left of thee to make a bishop,--and that I may live to see it.-I beseech thee, Eugenius, quoth Yorick, taking off his night-cap as well as he could with his left hand,-his right being still grasped close in that of Eugenius,-I beseech thee to take a view of my head. I see nothing that ails it, replied Eugenius. Then, alas! my friend, said Yorick, let me tell you, that 'tis so bruised and mis-shapen'd with the blows which ***** and

*****, and some others have so unhandsomely given me in the dark, that I might say with Sancho Pancha, that should I recover, and "Mitres thereupon be suffered to rain down "from heaven as thick as hail, not one of 'em would fit it."Yorick's last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips, ready to depart, as he uttered this,-yet still it was uttered with something of a Cervantic tone;--and as he spoke it, Eugenius could perceive a stream of lambent fire lighted up for a moment in his eyes;-faint picture of those flashes of his spirit, which (as Shakespeare said of his ancestor) were wont to set the table in a roar!

Eugenius was convinced from this, that the heart of his friend was broke; he squeezed his hand,--and then walk'd softly out of the room, weeping as he walk'd. Yorick followed Eugenius with his eyes to the door,-he then closed them, and never opened them more.

He lies buried in a corner of his church-yard, in the parish of, under a plain marble slab, which his friend Eugenius, by leave of his executors, laid upon his grave, with no more than these three words of inscription, serving both for his epitaph and elegy:

Alas, poor YORICK!

Ten times in a day has Yorick's ghost the consolation to hear his monumental inscription read over, with such a variety of plaintive tones, as denote a general pity and esteem for him;- a foot-way crossing the churchyard close by the side of his grave,-not a passenger goes by without stopping to cast a look upon it,-and sighing as he walks on,

Alas, poor YORICK!

To this we may add a short autobiographical sketch written by Sterne for his daughter Lydia, with, in slight degree, also the public in view.

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND FAMILY OF THE LATE REV. MR. LAURENCE STERNE.

Roger Sterne, (grandson to Archbishop Sterne) Lieutenant in Handaside's regiment, was married to Agnes Hebert, widow of a captain of a good family: her family name was (I believe) Nuttle-though, upon recollection, that was the name of her father-in-law, who was a noted sutler in Flanders, in Queen Ann's wars, where my father married his wife's daughter (N. B. he was in debt to him) which was in September 25, 1711, Old Stile.-This Nuttle had a son by my grandmother-a fine person of a man but a graceless whelp -what became of him I know not.-The family (if any left) live now at Clonmel in the south of Ireland, at which town I was born November 24th, 1713, a few days after my mother arrived from Dunkirk.-My birth-day was ominous to my poor father, who was, the day after our arrival, with many other brave officers broke, and sent adrift into the wide world with a wife and two children-the elder of which was Mary; she was born in Lisle in French Flanders, July the tenth, one thousand seven hundred and twelve, New Stile. This child was most unfortunate-she married one Weemans in Dublin-who used her most unmercifully-spent his substance, became a bankrupt, and left my poor sister to shift for herself,-which she was able to do but for a few months, for she went to a friend's house in the country, and died of a broken heart. She was a most beautiful womanof a fine figure, and deserved a better fate.--The regiment, in which my father served, being broke, he left Ireland as

soon as I was able to be carried, with the rest of his family, and came to the family seat at Elvington, near York, where his mother lived. She was daughter to Sir Roger Jaques, and an heiress. There we sojourned for about ten months, when the regiment was established, and our household decamped with bag and baggage for Dublin. Within a month of our arrival, my father left us, being ordered to Exeter, where, in a sad winter, my mother and her two children followed him, travelling from Liverpool by land to Plymouth. (Melancholy description of this journey not necessary to be transmitted here.) In twelve months we were all sent back to Dublin. -My mother, with three of us (for she laid in at Plymouth of a boy, Joram), took ship at Bristol, for Ireland, and had a narrow escape from being cast away by a leak springing up in the vessel.-At length, after many perils, and struggles,

we got to Dublin.-There my father took a large house, furnished it, and in a year and a half's time spent a great deal of money.In the year one thousand seven hundred and nineteen, all unhing'd again; the regiment was ordered, with many others, to the Isle of Wight, in order to embark for Spain in the Vigo Expedition. We accompanied the regiment, and was driven into Milford Haven, but landed at Bristol, from thence by land to Plymouth again, and to the Isle of Wight-where I remember we stayed encamped some time before the embarkation of the troops-(in this expedition from Bristol to Hampshire we lost poor Joram-a pretty boy, four years old, of the small-pox), my mother, sister, and myself, remained at the Isle of Wight during the Vigo Expedition, and until the regiment had got back to Wicklow in Ireland, from whence my father sent for us. We had poor Joram's loss supplied during our stay in the Isle of Wight, by the birth of a girl, Anne, born September the twenty-third, one thousand seven hundred and nineteen.This pretty blossom fell at the age of three years, in the Barracks of Dublin--she was, as I well remember, of a fine delicate frame, not made to last long, as were most of my father's babes.-We embarked for Dublin, and had all been cast away by a most violent storm; but through the intercessions of my mother, the captain was prevailed upon to turn back into Wales, where we stayed a month, and at