166 Cranborne Chase. 



Mr. Chafin having introduced us to one eccentric character 

 connected with Chase history, I will now introduce another — Mr. 

 Chafin himself, the author of the little book to which I have had 

 occasion to refer. His book makes no pretension to be called a 

 history : indeed the very title is that of " Anecdotes'"' : and so far 

 as it goes is amusing enough : the more so because it is written in 

 a perfectly unaffected manner; his stories being jotted down just as 

 he happened to remember them, but he assures us that every one of 

 them is perfectly true. As we are now not likely to hear much 

 more about an extinct Chase, his anecdotes become more curious. In 

 1816, some little time before his death, he drew up "A short and 

 imperfect sketch of the life of William Chafin, Clerk, from memory 

 alone/' This, together with a number of letters written by him 

 was afterwards printed by the late Mr. Nichols in his work called 

 "Illustrations of the Literary History of the 18th century": and 

 Mr. Nichols introduces the little memoir in these words : — " A 

 lively piece o£ Autobiography written purposely with a view to 

 publication by a highly respectable old gentleman of Dorsetshire, 

 who, although a clergyman by profession perhaps partook more of 

 the character of a country squire. " Of that there is no doubt. In 

 his composition, mental and bodily, the lay element prevailed very 

 considerably over the clerical. A few particulars must suffice to 

 give an idea of the gentleman and his ways. 



The Chafin family, I should first say, came originally from 

 Wiltshire three hundred years ago. There were three or four 

 branches of it, in Dorset, most of which, if not all, are, I believe, 

 extinct. 



William Chafin was born in 1733 at the family place at Chettle. 

 His grandmother was a Penruddocke : his mother a Sturt : and he 

 was her eleventh child. Several of the children having died, as the 

 father, George Chafin, thought, from too tender nursing, he resolved 

 to try a different system with number eleven : so, the moment the 

 child had received his Christian name of William he was then and 

 there carried off, from the very font, to the cottage of his father's 

 shepherd in the village to be nurtured by mistress shepherd : and 

 there he remained for five years, fed on cottage fare, without once 



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