SAMUEL DALE AND THE DALE FAMILY. 
51 
letter-piece, which shows that it is the fourth volume of some 
bulky edition or the works of the great Greek physician Hippo¬ 
crates. 
The second portiait (fig. 2) portrays, nearly full-face, a 
plump round-faced lady of about the same age, fashionably 
attired. 
The third portrait (fig. 3) is painted, like the ethers, within 
an oval ; but the background, instead of being quite plain, 
consists of trees, through which we get a glimpse of a lake, 
with mountains beyond. It depicts, about two-thirds length 
and almost full-faced, a nice-looking youth, about seven or eight 
years of age. A broad dark-blue sash, passing over his right 
shoulder, supports at his left hip a drum, on which is painted 
the Royal Cypher (G.R.) of King George III., surmounted by a 
large crown in red and white. The lettering on the drum was 
evidently invisible to the camera. 
The question naturally arises :—If these portraits do not 
present Samuel Dale and members of his family, whom do they 
portray ? 
There is now no possibility of obtaining a conclusive reply, 
but there are known facts which' justify a pretty confident 
conclusion. Thus, the inclusion in the male portrait of a volume 
of the works of Hippocrates is almost sufficient to establish the 
fact that the man represented belonged to the medical pro¬ 
fession. Again, there is every reason to believe that all the 
three portraits belong to one another. Further, the fact that 
the portraits came from Braintree and have been reputed, as 
far back as w r e know anything of them, to represent members 
of the Dale family of that town, is fairly-conclusive evidence 
that they really do represent members of that family. 
These things being as stated, it is natural we should wish 
to know which particular members of the Dale family we may 
suppose them to represent. In attempting to solve this problem, 
I propose to give some information I have recently unearthed. 
The life-history of Samuel Dale himself has been investigated 
in part by Prof. G. S. Boulger, but there still remains much 
that is obscure in connection with both it and the genealogy 
•of his family. 
At or slightly before the middle of the Seventeenth Century, 
