LONGEVITY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " Specrnoa.',1
Snt,—The element of great longevity is not always necessary to establish a direct and interesting association between our pre- sent and our past. I am in my 79th year, and when an Oxford undergraduate used to stay with a maiden aunt, the -4ate Miss Mary Tarleton, during my vacations. At the time I so resided with her my aunt was in the habit of paying occasional visits of ceremony to Lady Tarleton, widow of Banastre Tarleton (Tarleton of the Legion). I do not think I over accompanied my aunt on any of these state visits, but had I done so I should have been brought face to face with the widow of a man who bore a distinguished part in most of the fighting of the American War of Independence (including the hard-fought action near Camden in August, 1780, in which Lord Cornwallis completely defeated the American General Gates), who was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in his most successful, if not his only, battlepiece, and had dined with Philippe "Egalite" when the head of the Princess de Lamballe was carried past the windows of the dining-room on the 3rd of September, 1792, drawing irom the Duke as he went to the window to see the cause of the uproar, the remark, " Ah ! e'est La Lamballe, je la commis par see chevrons."
It was reported and believed at the time that of the twelve persons at table Lieut.-Colonel Tarleton was the only one who that day twelvemonth had his head on his shoulders, but I recall even now with admiration the ready knowledge with which -my old friend Charles Alan Fyffe, to whom I had related the story with its grim addition, corrected me on the spot, with the com- ment, "Dramatically perhaps, but not, in the case of Egalitd at least, literally true, more than a twelvemonth having elapeed. after the death of the Princess de Lamballe before the Duo d'Orleang lost his head on the scaffold." It was, however, rather a near thing, the dates being September, 1792, and November, 1793.-1 am, Sir, Ac., _ C. Comma Teases Beech Hill, Morchard Bishop, N. Devon.
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