my father's birth at Hanworth, it is probable that his parents How or why my grandfather came to live at Hanworth The only further scrap of information as to my father's family is derived from a remark he once made in my hearing, that his uncles at Stirling (I think he said) were very tall men. I myself was six feet when I was sixteen, and my eldest brother William was an inch taller, while my brother John and sister Fanny were both rather tall. My father and mother, however, were under rather than over middle height, and the remark about his tall uncles was to account for this abnormal height by showing that it was in the family. As all the Wallaces of Scotland are held to be various branches of the one family of the hero Sir William Wallace, we have always considered ourselves to be descended from that famous stock; and this view is supported by the fact that our family crest was said to be an ostrich's head with a horseshoe in its mouth, and this crest belongs, according to Burke's "Peerage," to Craigie-Wallace, one of the branches of the patriot's family. Of my mother's family I have somewhat fuller details, though not going any further back. Her father was John : Greenell, of Hertford, who died there in 1824 at the age of 79. He had two daughters, Martha, who married Thomas Wilson, Esq., a solicitor, and agent for the Portman estate, and Mary Anne, my mother. Their mother died when the two girls were two and three years old. Mr. Greenell married a second time, and his widow lived till 1828, so that my elder brothers and sisters may have known her, but she was only their step-grandmother. Mr. Greenell had died four years earlier. Although he lived to such a comparatively recent period, I have not been able to ascertain what was his busiHis father, however, my mother's grandfather, who died in 1797, aged 80, was for many years an alderman, and twice Mayor of Hertford (in 1773 and 1779), as stated in the records of the borough. He was buried in St. Andrew's churchyard. ness. There is also in the same churchyard a family tomb, in which my father and my sister Eliza are buried, but which belonged to a brother of my mother's grandfather, William Greenell, as shown by the following inscription : "Under this tomb with his beloved wife are deposited the remains of WILLIAM GREENELL, A native of this parish, who resided 56 years in St. Marylebone, Where he acquired an ample fortune, With universal esteem and unblemished reputation. There is also an inscription to his wife Ann, who died a year earlier, and is described as the "wife and faithful friend of William Greenell, of Great Portland Street, Marylebone." As the tomb was not used for any other interment till my sister's death in 1832, it seems likely that William Greenell had no family, or that if he had they had all removed to other parts of England. My mother's mother was a Miss Hudson, whose cousin I remember as owner of the Town-mill in Hertford, and his daughters were my sisters' playfellows and friends, but this family is now extinct so far as the town is concerned. A sister of my grandfather Greenell married Mr. John Roberts, whose son lived many years at Epsom, and this family is also extinct by the death of an only son in early manhood, and of an only daughter at an advanced age in 1890. Through the kindness of Mr. J. B. Wohlmann, late headmaster of the Grammar School, I learn that in the parish registers of births, deaths, and marriages in Hertford, and also in Chauncey's "History and Antiquities of Hertfordshire" and in Clutterbuck's "History of Herts," there are considerable numbers of Greenells (the name being variously spelt, as Grinell, Greenhill, etc.), going back continuously to 1579. I possess an old seal with a coat-of-arms which belonged to my grandfather, and was believed to be those of the Greenell family-a cross on a shield with seven balls on the cross, and a leopard's head for a crest. The balls indicate the name, "Grenaille" being French for shot; and the family were not improbably French refugees after the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572. My mother had several large oil-paintings of the Greenell ancestors which came to her from her sister, Mrs. Wilson, when the Wilsons went to South Australia. Being inconveniently large for our small houses and our frequent removals, they were given to the Miss Roberts above mentioned, who had a large house at Epsom, and on her death they passed with the house to some relatives of her mother, who had no kinship whatever with the Greenells. One of these portraits was that of the great-uncle William Greenell, of Marylebone, who was an architect, and is represented with the design of some public building which, we were told, he had had the honour of himself showing to the king, George the Second or Third. He is shown as a young man, and I was said to resemble him, not only in features, but in a slight peculiarity in one eyebrow, which was indicated on the portrait. I wished to obtain a photograph of this portrait a few years ago, but the present owner refused to allow it to be copied, having, I fancy, some exaggerated idea of its value as a work of art. Other friends or relatives of the Greenell family were named Russell and Pugh, and are buried at Hertford. A large gentleman's mourning ring in memory of Richard Russell, Esq., was given me by Miss Roberts, as, I presume, the person after whom I was given my second name, though probably from an error in the register mine is always spelt with one, and this peculiarity was impressed upon me in my childhood. Another ring is from Miss Pugh, a friend of my mother's, and, I believe, one of the Russell family. We also possess a very beautiful pastel miniature of Mrs. Frances Hodges, who was a Miss Russell, and who died in 1809, and is buried at All Saints, Hertford; but the precise relationship, if any, of the Russells to the Greenells I have not been able to ascertain. One other point may be here mentioned. There seems to have been some connection by marriage between the Wallace and Greenell families before my father's marriage, as shown by the fact that his elder brother, who died in infancy, was named William Greenell Wallace, and it seems not unlikely that his mother, Mrs. Dilke, had been a Miss Greenell before her first marriage. I will now say a few words about my father's early life, and the various family troubles which, though apparently very disadvantageous to his children, may yet have been on the whole, as is so often the case, benefits in disguise. My father, Thomas Vere Wallace, was twelve years old when his father died, but his stepmother lived twenty-one years after her husband, and I think it not improbable that she may have resided in Marylebone near William Greenell the architect, and that my father went to school there. The only thing I remember his telling us about his school was that his master dressed in the old fashion, and that he had a best suit entirely of yellow velvet. When my father left school he was articled to a firm of solicitors-Messrs. Ewington and Chilcot, Bond Court, Walbrook, I think, as I find this name in an old note-book of my father's-and in 1792, when he had just come of age, he was duly sworn in as an Attorney-at-Law of the Court of King's Bench. He is described in the deed of admittance as of Lamb's Conduit Street, where he probably lodged while pursuing his legal studies, it being near the Inns of Court and at the same time almost in the country. He seems, however, never to have practised law, since he came into property which gave him an income of about £500 a year. This I heard from my sister Fanny. From this time till he married, fifteen years later, he appears to have lived quite idly, so far as being without any systematic occupation, often going to Bath in the season, where he used to tell us he had met the celebrated Beau Brummell and other characters of the early years of the nineteenth century. An old note-book shows that he was fond of collecting epitaphs from the churchyards of the various places he visited; among which are Brighton, Lowestoft, Bognor, Ryegate, Godalming, Sevenoaks, Chichester, etc. Most of these are commonplace reflections on the uncertainty of life or equally commonplace declarations of faith in the orthodox heaven, but here and there are more original efforts. This is one at Chichester on Henry Case, aged 28 "Here lies a brave soldier whom all must applaud, In the following, at Woodford, Essex, the village poet has been severely practical : "ON WILLIAM MEARS, PLUMBER. "Farewell, old friend, for thou art gone A plumber, painter, glazier, was your trade, |