BIRTH--MY FATHER--TAMERLANE--BEN BRAIN--FRENCH PROTESTANTS--EAST
ANGLIA--SORROW AND TROUBLES--TRUE PEACE--A BEAUTIFUL CHILD--FOREIGN
GRAVE--MIRRORS--THE ALPINE COUNTRY--EMBLEMS--SLOWNESS OF SPEECH--THE
JEW--SOME STRANGE GESTURES

On an evening of July, in the year 18--, at East D---, a beautiful little
town in a certain district of East Anglia, I first saw the light.

My father was a Cornish man, the youngest, as I have heard him say, of
seven brothers. He sprang from a family of gentlemen, or, as some people
would call them, gentillatres, for they were not very wealthy; they had a
coat of arms, however, and lived on their own property at a place called
Tredinnock, which being interpreted means _the house on the hill_, which
house and the neighbouring acres had been from time immemorial in their
possession. I mention these particulars that the reader may see at once
that I am not altogether of low and plebeian origin; the present age is
highly aristocratic, and I am convinced that the public will read my
pages with more zest from being told that I am a gentillatre by birth
with Cornish blood {1} in my veins, of a family who lived on their own
property at a place bearing a Celtic name, signifying the house on the
hill, or more strictly the house on the _hillock_.

My father was what is generally termed a posthumous child--in other
words, the gentillatre who begot him never had the satisfaction of
invoking the blessing of the Father of All upon his head; having departed
this life some months before the birth of his youngest son. The boy,
therefore, never knew a father's care; he was, however, well tended by
his mother, whose favourite he was; so much so, indeed, that his
brethren, the youngest of whom was considerably older than himself, were
rather jealous of him. I never heard, however, that they treated him
with any marked unkindness, and it will be as well to observe here that I
am by no means well acquainted with his early history, of which, indeed,
as I am not writing his life, it is not necessary to say much. Shortly
after his mother's death, which occurred when he was eighteen, he adopted
the profession of arms, which he followed during the remainder of his
life, and in which, had circumstances permitted, he would probably have
shone amongst the best. By nature he was cool and collected, slow to
anger, though perfectly fearless, patient of control, of great strength;
and, to crown all, a proper man wit