Italian Folklore Society, of which I am to rank as
among the first twelve members. This is the fourth institution of the
kind which I have been first, or among the first, to found in Europe, and
it has in every case been noted, not without surprise, that I was an
American. Such associations, being wide-reaching and cosmopolitan, may
be indeed considered by every man of culture as patriotic, and I hope at
some future day that I shall still further prove that, as regards my
native country, I have only changed my sky but not my heart, and laboured
for American interests as earnestly as ever.

CHARLES GODFREY LELAND.

BAGNI DI LUCCA, ITALY, _August 20_, _1893_.

I. EARLY LIFE. 1824-1837.

My birthplace--Count Bruno and Dufief--Family items--General
Lafayette--The Dutch witch-nurse--Early friends and
associations--Philadelphia sixty years ago--Early reading--Genealogy--First
schools--Summers in New England--English influences--The Revolutionary
grandfather--Centenarians--The last survivor of the Boston Tea-party and
the last signer of the Declaration--Indians--Memories of relations--A
Quaker school--My ups and downs in classes--Arithmetic--My first ride in
a railway car--My marvellous invention--Mr. Alcott's school--A
Transcendental teacher--Rev. W. H. Furness--Miss Eliza Leslie--The
boarding-school near Boston--Books--A terrible winter--My first poem--I
return to Philadelphia.

I was born on the 15th of August, 1824, in a house which was in
Philadelphia, and in Chestnut Street, the second door below Third Street,
on the north side. It had been built in the old Colonial time, and in
the room in which I first saw life there was an old chimney-piece, which
was so remarkable that strangers visiting the city often came to see it.
It was, I believe, of old carved oak, possibly mediaeval, which had been
brought from some English manor as a relic. I am indebted for this
information to a Mr. Landreth, who lived in the house at the time. {1}

It was then a boarding-house, kept by a Mrs. Rodgers. She had taken it
from a lady who had also kept it for boarders. The daughter of this
latter married President Madison. She was the well-known "Dolly
Madison," famous for her grace, accomplishments, and _belle humeur_, of
whom there are stories still current in Washington.

My authority informed me that there were among the boarders in the house
two remarkable men, one of whom often petted me as a babe, and took a
fanc