United States or Mali ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
While he was thus engaged I took up the first letter, and read it through right to the bitter end. It was apparently the last of a long correspondence, for all the letters were arranged chronologically, and this was the last of the packet. Written from Neneford Manor, Northamptonshire, and vaguely dated "Wednesday," as is a woman's habit, it was addressed to Mr. Courtenay, and ran as follows:
Buildings have been erected on an estate here and there which will be likely to serve as models for whole hamlets of new tenements. From what I have heard, I should think that Lord Overstone, of the great banking house of the Lloyds, has produced the best models for cottage homes, on his estates in Northamptonshire.
Now, I am well aware that I shall not be half so welcome to Mrs. Fraser in consequence of his situation with you. When she comes to know the truth she will, very likely, wish me in Northamptonshire again; for there is a daughter of Mr. Fraser, by a first wife, whom she is wild to get married, and wants Henry to take. Oh! she has been trying for him to such a degree.
Thence to visit Ned Pickering and his lady, and Creed and his wife, but the former abroad, and the latter out of town, gone to my Lady Pickering's in Northamptonshire, upon occasion of the late death of their brother, Oliver Pickering, a youth, that is dead of the smallpox.
The first case concerned a rich farmer in Northamptonshire who had gained the ill will of a woman named Ann Foster. Thirty of his sheep were found dead with their "Leggs broke in pieces, and their Bones all shattered in their Skins." A little later his house and barns were set on fire. Ann Foster was brought to trial for using witchcraft against him, confessed to it, and was hanged.
His estate has been mortgaged to an old banker, Sir Cautious Fulbank, whose wife Julia he loves, and to her he pretends to have gone to Northamptonshire to his uncle's death bed.
We can hardly believe a word that he says about himself without independent confirmation. Defoe was born in London, in 1661. It is a characteristic circumstance that his name is not his own, except in the sense that it was assumed by himself. The name of his father, who was a butcher in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, was Foe. His grandfather was a Northamptonshire yeoman.
The sky was then clear and glittering with stars; the moon, shining on a branch of the Ouse which divides Leicestershire from Northamptonshire, lit the green heath which skirted its banks. He wished not for a more magnificent canopy; and placing his bag under his head, he laid himself down beneath a hillock of furze, and slept till morning.
Ed. of Works by Dyce, Cunningham, and Bullen; Ingram's C. Marlowe and his Associates, etc. Dramatist, s. of a country gentleman of Northamptonshire, was ed. at Oxford. After a youth of extravagance, he fought in the Low Countries. His writings consist of an epic, Cupid and Psyche, and three comedies, Holland's Leaguer, A Fair Companion, and The Antiquary.
Then they all dispersed again till September, when the following new conspirators were admitted; SIR EDWARD BAYNHAM, of Gloucestershire; SIR EVERARD DIGBY, of Rutlandshire; AMBROSE ROOKWOOD, of Suffolk; FRANCIS TRESHAM, of Northamptonshire.
Word Of The Day