426 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. VI. 152., Nov. 27. 'oS. 



Countess was fifteen months old. If, then, she 

 died when this child was in its tenth year, or, ac- 

 cording to Savage's amended statement in his 

 letter to Mrs. Carter, when he was but seven 

 years of age, she must have married and died 

 within six, or at most eight or nine years. Unless 

 she married immediately on her return from the 

 Continent, her godson would almost be able to 

 remember her marriage, or would at all events 

 remember her husband. Savage, however, speaks 

 of no "Mr. Loyd;" though he has so distinct a 

 recollection of Mrs. Loyd, as to describe her thirty 

 years afterwards as " a lady that kept her chariot 

 and lived accordingly." 



All the facts stated by Johrfson concerning 

 the godmother, her name, her tender regard for 

 him, her death " before he was ten years old," 

 and her legacy to her godson of 300^., embez- 

 zled by her executors, were put forth in 1719 

 in Jacob, to whom Savage must have sent these 

 statements. But Savage appeal's in 1739 to have 

 been more cautious. If a lady in so gooda posi- 

 tion of life had tenderly reared him until his tenth 

 year, it is natural to inquire whether she had no 

 respectable relations whom Savage could still re- 

 member, and to whom he could appeal for justice 

 against her fraudulent executors ? The difficulty 

 would of course be less if he had been younger ; 

 and, accordingly, in his letter to Miss Carter, we 

 find Savage stating that the death of Mrs. Loyd 

 occurred when he was " but seven years of age." 

 The story, however, although ingeniously patched, 

 is still far from being satisfactory. It willbe ob- 

 served that Savage does not say where his god- 

 mother, "who kept her chariot," lived or died ; or 

 what were the names of the executors against whose 

 roguery he was unable to obtain a remedy. Nor 

 does he tell us why Lady Mason, who had " con- 

 tinued her care," and, if the godmother died when 

 Savage was seven years old, must have survived 

 her ten years, permitted this spoliation of her 

 grandchild. 



If Mrs. Dorothy Ousley, or Dorothy Loyd, 

 really left a will bequeathing to " Richard Smith," 

 her godson, 3001. — and if this was notorious to 

 Savage and his biographers and friends, from 

 Jacob to Johnson, — her will must have been exist- 

 ing. The chances would be very strongly in 

 favour of its being found on the register of the 

 Archbishop's Court at Doctors' Commons. I have 

 searched, however, for the period extending oyer 

 the first fourteen years of Richard Smith's life, 

 but have found no will of either name. The re- 

 spectability of Dorothy Ousley's family renders it 

 highly improbable that such a bequest could have 

 been withheld. A few facts respecting them will 

 help to show this. 



The Ousleys were of Glooston in Leicestershire, 

 of which parish members of the family of that 

 name were successively rectors, with but a slight 



break, from 1660 to 1743. The parents of New- 

 digate and Dorothy were, I suspect, the Rev. 

 John Ousley, who died and was buried at Gloos- 

 ton in 1687, and Dorothy Ousley, his wife. They 

 had twelve children. Newdigate's brother, Poyntz 

 Ousley, married a daughter of " John Dand of 

 Gaulby, gentleman," and remained settled at 

 Glooston ; Newdigate must have removed to Lon- 

 don early. He was only twenty-four in 1684, 

 when I find, from the register-books of St. Mary 

 Woolnoth, London, that he married a Mrs. Eliza- 

 beth Jones of " Thames Street," and he is there 

 described as " of the parish of St. Martin's-in-the- 

 Fields, gentleman ; " where he was still living at 

 the time of the Macclesfield divorce. Soon after 

 this he removed to Low-Leyton in Essex, where 

 he had property, and was buried there in 1714, as 

 appears by the entry in the register of Leyton : — 



" 1714. — 1 Novem., Newdygate Owsley, Gent." 



Newdigate had at least six children who sur- 

 vived him, and to whom he leaves his property by 

 will. One of these children, Chai-les Ousley, de- 

 scribed as " of La3'tonstone, Esquire," by his will, 

 dated 7 Nov. 1730, bequeaths copyhold and lease- 

 hold property at Low-Leyton, and other property, 

 to his brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts, with 

 legacies to his " gardener " and " footman." The 

 Ousleys continued to reside at Leyton for many 

 years. Mary, the fourth daughter of Newdigate, 

 married David Lewis, Esq., and died at Leyton in 

 1774, at ninety years of age. David Lewis was 

 the friend of Pope, to whom Lewis dedicated a 

 play, and Pope contributed poems to David 

 Lewis's second Miscellany, published in 1730. I 

 have not been able to find the date of the death of 

 Dorothy Ousley : but if she died and left a will her 

 brother or some other of her relatives, who were 

 responsible persons, would probably have been 

 executors. Such persons would not have been 

 likely, or would not have been able, to embezzle 

 a legacy of 300?. 



It is idle, however, to suppose that Savage knew 

 anything whatever about the real godmother of the 

 Countess of Macclesfield's child, "Richard Smith." 

 If he had been tenderly guarded by her, even till 

 seven years old, he could not have failed to know 

 also his godfather, Newdigate Ousley. He lived 

 till the lost child of the Countess of Macclesfield 

 would, if living, have been nearly eighteen, and 

 he was a gentleman of property and position, re- 

 siding within six miles of the Royal Exchange. 

 Savage, according to his own letter, had even dis- 

 covered his true name at seventeen. Is it to be 

 believed then, that if Mrs. Loyd, his godmother, 

 were Mrs. Ousley, the godmother of the Coun- 

 tess's child. Savage would have made no appeal to 

 his rich godfather — no application to any of the 

 Ousleys — and that we should never even have 

 heard from him of their name? We have not 



