Introductory Chapter.

ix

Father, in August 1861, to let me write from his dictation as much as he could recall of the different scenes in his varied life. He was pleased with the proposal, and we commenced at once. Our progress was slow, as I could only write a few weeks in each summer, and except in the description of his childhood and early youth, he followed no plan, but dictated as memory or fancy suggested. I was occupied in the intervals in arranging and bringing into order the various parts, which consisted of innumerable detached particulars. The Book, so far as my Father was concerned in it, was completed in the autumn of 1868. There still remained for me more than a year's work in linking the narrative together where it seemed necessary (which I have done in smaller type in order distinctly to mark the difference), and in adding such notes as I thought might serve to illustrate the singular changes in laws, manners, and customs, which were comprised within the compass of my Father's life. The letters which I have printed (by permission of the writers, if surviving, or their representatives, if I had any doubt of the propriety of using them), are inserted on my own responsibility. Father never suggested my doing so, or even mentioned that he possessed them, but I have used my privilege as an Editor and Executrix to supplement his "Recollections."

My

Although a work of some labour, this has been one of pleasure to me, and I think it was also to my Father. One would not altogether die; and although he was really too little occupied with himself to have initiated such a

Memorial, I think that he was pleased to have it done for him. He could not but be conscious that he had not lived in vain, though he never asserted it himself. Не could not forget that he alone laid in the University of Cambridge the foundation of Economic Science, which although it has been pleasantly called by Mr Carlyle "the dismal Science," yet has, I suppose, really assisted Our Statesmen

"To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land.”

This was far from his only contribution to the benefit of mankind; but as this fact will appear in the course of his Recollections, I need not dwell upon it here.

I hope that nothing will be found in these pages to wound the feelings of the persons spoken of if living, or their surviving relatives if deceased. My Father was most anxious about this point, and always suppressed an anecdote or a name where he thought that there was a possibility of giving pain. A few remarks about public men may be looked upon as constituting exceptions to this his guiding rule, but it is only as public men that they are spoken of, and such are accustomed to have their actions freely canvassed.

On the other hand, I trust that some will be pleased with the sketches of persons who have played important parts in their day, whose actions still "smell sweet and blossom in their dust'," but of whom no lengthened Memoir has been or could be written, since a part of the beauty of their particular life lay in its partial concealment.

1 James Shirley, ed. Dyce, Vol. vi.

Introductory Chapter.

xi

I must add one word more to express my thanks to my friend Canon Blakesley, to whose kindness in reading my proof-sheets I owe the correction of some misprints, and other inadvertencies which had escaped my own eye. A. B.

AUTOBIOGRAPHIC RECOLLECTIONS

OF

PROFESSOR PRYME.

14

CHAPTER I.

1781-1796.

Huguenot descent-Abraham de la Pryme the antiquary-Kingston-uponHull-Birth-Wensleydale-Nottingham-First School-Great Frost-Severe illness-Clergy of those days-Card-playing— Old Lady of Queen Anne's time-Nottingham Election Riot-John Wesley-Bunny-Sir T. Parkyns-Sherwood Forest-Mr BeethamSchoolfellows-News from France-Lord Howe's Victory-Sports and old customs-Dinner parties-Mr Wilberforce-Nottingham Assizes-Two curious trials—Adam Smith.

I

AM descended from one of about eighty Huguenot families who migrated from French Flanders during the siege of Rochelle, and settled at Hatfield near Doncaster in Yorkshire'. They obtained a licence from King Charles I. for a religious service to be used in their own languages

1" Hatfield was formerly a Royal village, in which the King had a palace; so there is part of the palace standing (circa 1694), being an indifferent large hall, with great courts and gardens about the same."—A. de la Pryme's History of Hatfield.