CHARLES WATERTON, ESQ. XV 
The poet tells us, that the good qualities of man 
and of cattle descend to their offspring. " Fortes 
creantur fortibus et bonis." If this holds good, I 
ought to be pretty well off, as far as breeding goes ; 
for, on the father s side, I come in a direct line from 
Sir Thomas More, through my grandmother ; whilst 
by the mother s side I am akin to the Bedingfelds 
of Oxburgh, to the Charltons of Hazleside, and to 
the Swinburnes of Capheaton. 
My family has been at Walton Hall for some 
centuries. It emigrated into Yorkshire, from Wa- 
terton in the island of Axeholme in Lincolnshire, 
where it had been for a very long time. Indeed, I 
dare say I could trace it up to Father Adam, if my 
progenitors had only been as careful in preserving 
family records, as the Arabs are in recording the 
pedigree of their horses ; for I do most firmly 
believe that we are all descended from Adam and 
his wife Eve, notwithstanding what certain self- 
sufficient philosophers may have advanced to the 
contrary. Old Matt Prior had probably an oppor- 
tunity of laying his hands on family papers of the 
same purport as those which I have not been able 
to find ; for he positively informs us that Adam and 
Eve were his ancestors : — 
" Gentlemen, here, by your leave, 
Lie the bones of Mathew Prior, 
A son of Adam and of Eve : 
Can Bourbon or Nassau go higher ? " 
Depend upon it, the man under Afric's burning 
zone, and he from the frozen regions of the north, 
have both come from the same stem. Their differ- 
