174 CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS FAMILY. 



nicative and pleasant, but exceedingly poor, having married 

 a Spanish girl without a farthing, who brought him a house- 

 full of children and all her happy relations to live on him when 

 he was only lieutenant. He was supposed to be the son of a 

 Knight of Malta, whom he called his uncle. 



What can be the meaning of the following advertisement, 

 which I have seen in the papers? " The life of the Hon. 

 Thomas Chambers Cecil, late Knight of the Shire for Rutland, 

 father of the present member for Stamford, and brother to the 

 Earl of Exeter." What makes me wonder because this man 

 was always represented formerly as little better than an idiot ! 

 Now you talk of biography, have you seen the life of Mr. 

 Elwes*, late member for Berkshire? 



Dr. Chandler and lady, who have been abroad almost four 

 years, and who returned from the Continent only last Feb., 

 have borrowed Selborne parsonage-house for the summer, and 

 came to reside last week. The Dr., who is an unsettled man, 

 likes this method of procuring an habitation, because it looks 

 so like not settling. Roaming about becomes a habit with 

 gentry as well as mendicants, who, when they have once 

 taken up a strolling life, can never be persuaded to stay at 

 their own parishes. The lady is very big with child, and sent 

 for her midwife this morning ; so they reached Selborne just 

 in time. They brought a little son with them, a pretty boy, 

 who was born at Rolle in Switzerland, as it were by accident, 

 while posting home to England. Rome is the place that the 

 Dr. admires, where he can have his fill of virtu ; he has, I 

 find, secret languishing to return to that capital, to study in 

 the Vatican, and to dine with cardinals. In his passage to 

 Italy, they hired a ship at Marseilles, which was to land them 

 at Civita Vecchia ; for some time they had such prosperous 

 gales that the master told them they would be at their des- 

 tination presently. But as they approached Italy such squalls 

 came off from the Apennines that, after beating about for some 

 days, and fearing that they must ran for some harbour in 

 Sardinia, they with difficulty made Porto Longone, in the Isle 



* [The celebrated miser, who died in 1789, leaving a fortune of 

 £500,000.— T B.] 



