1848 PARENTAGE makes a curious double relationship, legitimate and illegitimate, and endows my veins with some theatrical blood. It is curious, but human, that we should be so fond of tracing our descent from great men, but I hope the weakness is pardonable. I think it is Macaulay who says that those who are not proud of their ancestors will never care to make their posterity proud of them. I was born at my father's house, No. 5 New Street, Spring Gardens, on April 4, 1832, and can claim an exact contemporary in the great Reform Bill of that year; indeed, I came into the world at what may fairly be called the commencement of a new era, for in that year the terrible criminal code which had so long disgraced our country was repealed. Shortly before the Queen's accession a little boy was sentenced to death for breaking a confectioner's window and stealing some sweetmeats. The kindlier laws were producing kindlier manners, and in 1835 only was an Act passed to render illegal the baiting of animals; but I recollect in my boyhood hearing of cock-fighting still existing at Elmore's Farm, near Harrow, for the amusement of those who were wrongly called sportsmen. But the purer manners and nobler laws were still only beginning, for in 1836 there were 52,000 convicts living in foreign lands in a state of bestial immorality. Now, notwithstanding the increase of population, there are only 4000 undergoing penal servitude, all in this country. In 1837, 4000 debtors were lying in common cells with damp brick walls, with no bedding, and herded with murderers and common malefactors. I well recollect when I was a boy seeing poor debtors looking through the bars. of Dover Castle and ringing a bell to attract the attention of the passers-by, from whom they solicited alms. Lunatics, who are now treated with careful kindness, were chained together on beds of straw, naked, handcuffed, and shown at twopence a head for each visitor. Spencer Walpole, in his admirable History, well describes the England of 1815 and 1832 : "In 1815 legislation had been directed to secure the advantage of a class; in 1832 it was directed to secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number. .. ... "Roman Catholics were admitted to Parliament, the Test and Corporation Bill had been repealed, and Dissenters were eligible for every office; but while the rest of the country was wealthier and happier, Ireland alone was the constant scene of misery and disturbance, and the English laborers, agricultural as well as manufacturing, were still in a state of abject and miserable neglect and poverty." One of my godfathers was my uncle Gilbert West, whose namesake, Gilbert West, was Clerk of the Privy Council, and wrote a famous book on the Resurrection, and was editor of Pindar, but was better known for his friendship with the classical Lord Lyttelton, whose verses, written in 1740, are perhaps not sufficiently known to prevent my quoting them. Those in Latin are by Gilbert West, and those in English by Lord Lyttelton. They were inscribed in the summer-house at Wickham: "Hic mihi nec procul urbe situs, nec prorsus ad urbem Et quoties mutare locum fastidia cogunt "Fair Nature's sweet simplicity With elegance refined Well in thy seat, my friend, I see, 1848 GODFATHERS AND GODMOTHERS "To both from courts and all their state Eager I fly to prove Joys far above a courtier's fate, There is a picture of Gilbert West at Hagley, and my father always maintained that it should have been his. At Lord Lyttelton's death, I was shocked to find that for purposes of probate it was valued at 10s. ! The Rev. Algernon Peyton was my other godfather, from whom I got my name and nothing else; he held the largest living ever known, said to be worth £14,000. a year, and was certainly the very prince of dandies. rode a smart hack in Rotten Row, wore very tight nankeen trousers, a blue cut-away coat, with a clove always in his button-hole, and was satirically nicknamed "The Sloven" by his contemporaries. My godmothers were Miss Fanny Lambert Walpole, who died in 1887, at the age of ninety-six, her father having been killed in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and Lady Charlotte Walpole, a blind sister of my mother's. At the time of my birth I had two brothers-Henry, afterwards M.P. for Ipswich, Q.C., Recorder of Manchester, and Attorney-General of the Duchy of Lancaster; and Richard, the well-known founder and first Vicar of St. Mary Magdalene's, Paddington, whose Life has recently been written by Canon Carter, of Clewer-and two sisters; the elder married Admiral of the Fleet Hon. Sir Henry Keppel, and my second sister never married. Two of my parents' daughters had died before I came into the world, one from illness, and one from a very sad accident. Playing one evening in her nursery at Brighton, she had suddenly pulled down a sliding shutter, which was a common thing in those days, and the window being open she fell on the pavement below and received injuries from which she died. After my mother's death we found among her papers a letter written by some woman to her on this daughter's birth, saying she had cast her horoscope, and that the child born to her would die an early and a violent death. To this letter was pinned, with no remark, the account of the accident. My earliest recollection takes me to a large old-fashioned garden at Sheen, where I know there were raspberries; and in the following summer to a pretty house, called Riverdale Cottage, on the banks of the Thames at Richmond, which my father had hired for the summer months. The garden sloped down to the towing-path, and our great delight was to get into a summer-house, close to it, and be prevented by the rising tide from returning to our lessons. Our garden was next and ran parallel to that belonging to the Misses Fanshawe, one of whom was celebrated for her famous epigram on the letter H, which was generally, but erroneously, attributed to Byron, and sometimes published among his poems: ""Twas whispered in Heaven, The sound as it fell. 'Twas permitted to rest, When 'tis riven asunder, Be seen in the lightning And heard in the thunder. 'Twas allotted to man With his earliest breath, It assists at his birth And attends him in death, 1848 THE LETTER H Presides o'er his happiness, Is the prop of his house In his prodigal heir. Every wish it must bound; With monarchs is crowned. The sailor may roam, But woe to the wretch Who expels it from home. Of passion is drowned. Though deaf to the ear, Like a delicate flower. Oh! breathe on it softly, It dies in an hour." The lines were written at Deepdene for Mrs. Thomas Hope, and are now the property of Mr. Philip Beresford Hope, of Bedgebury. The poetess had died in 1834, but her sisters were living at Richmond, and belonged to a small literary set. of people of such an old-world society that neither the Misses Berry nor Mrs. Somerville could pierce their formality. The Misses Fanshawe's garden was also celebrated as containing on the lawn a beautiful catalpa tree, under |