ADDISON'S ANCESTOR
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin, In a field on the southern border• of a charmingly rural unspoilt Westmorland village, distant from towns and trains, is a monument that should be of some interest to the editorial staff of the Spectator, if not to its general readers. Moulds Meaburn is the name of the village, and it lies midway between Appleby on the east, Shap on the west, in the fair vale of the Lyvennet, a tumbling, crystal-clear tributary of the Eden. The site of the monument commands a fine prospect of farmsteads, fields and fell, copses, scattered trees and dark woods. A plantation that half encircles the field hides from view the long clean-cut ridge of the Pennine range, with broad-topped Cross Fell as its dominant feature. The monument itself is a rude four-sided block embedded in the hewn-out trough of a boulder• for its base. A smoothed side of the stone bears the inscription " On this spot dwelt the paternal ancestor of Use celebrated Joseph Addison. His father, Lancelot Addison, Dean of Lichfield, was born here A.D. 1632."
On another side of the stone is the family arms, consisting of three heads, apparently lioness' heads, three round rings, and the rest of the tablet is sprinkled with characters resem- bling the footmarks of a bird. Slow erosion undermined the monument, and it has lain prone and neglected for many years.
The conformation of the ground vaguely indicates the out- line of the home of Joseph Addison's " paternal ancestor."—
I ant, Sir, &e., J. W. HODOSON. " Woodhead," Morland, Pcnrith.
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