16 JUNE 1950, Page 18

SIR,—My great-great-grandfather often saw and conversed with Charlotte Addison when

she and her cousin and companion, Miss Sill, stayed at Crosby Ravensworth in Westmorland, the birthplace of her grandfather, the Dean of Lichfielk --She was not an idiot, as stated in the Oxford tale, but was, as described by Leslie Stephen in the D.N.B., " of rather defective intellect." I have a note that she died in 1797. I am descended from her cousin, Catharine Addison,- daughter of Lancelot, a brother of Joseph Addison.—I am, Sir, yours