LINKS WITH THE PAST
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I think the following few links deserve to be recorded. I may mention, to give due weight to the record, that the names of all five persons are entered in a pedigree remaining at the College of Arms.
My sister, born in December, 1851, and now seventy- five, remembers clearly our great-grandmother, Lady M. (1765-1857). (2) Lady M. knew intimately her grand- mother's second husband (who was also her husband's grand- father), Sir P. S. (baronet). (3) Sir P. S. (1704-1780) could just remember his grandfather, E. M. (1612-3-1709), who was buried in Winchester Cathedral and on whose tombstone his age (96) is duly recorded. (4) E. M. (1612-3-1709) could easily remember his grandfather, R. M., of Winchester, who is stated in one of the Visitations of Hampshire (1686) to have been upwards (et amplius) of sixty at his death in 1646.
That expression may be regarded quite broadly—the person named being, quite possibly, very much upwards of sixty. It is therefore perfectly legitimate to take, say, 1580 as the date of birth of R. M., though, very possibly, he was born very much earlier. So that my sister can join hands, with only three intervening links, with her ancestor, R. M., who was born far back in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and about a quarter of a century (possibly very much less, indeed) from the days when England was Catholic !—I am,
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