[2] Edward Healy Thompson married Harriet Diana, daughter of Nicolson Calvert, sometime M.P. for Hertford, by Frances, co-heir of the 1st and last Viscount Pery. Another uncle of the poet was the Rev. Henry Thompson, who was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford; took clerical duty at Kirk Hammerton and at Greatham (Hants); published a sermon (1850) entitled The New Birth by Water and the Spirit; married Julia, daughter of Sir William Yea, Bart. A daughter by this union, Charlotte Anne Hechstetter Yea Thompson, married (1869) Ralph Abercrombie Cameron, elder son of the Rev. Alexander Cameron by Charlotte, daughter of the Hon. Edward Rice, D.D., Dean of Gloucester. A fourth uncle of the poet, James Thompson, lost his life in South Africa.
[3] At the Convent of the Holy Child, St. Leonard's-on-Sea.
[4] A photograph (now missing), taken at the age of eleven or twelve, shows Francis with a small bust of Shakespeare—the treasured gift of his mother. In all the early photographs he conforms to one early description—"a boy known for his piety, obedience, and truthfulness"—and he is tidy, too!
[5] "Dream Tryst" was afterwards alluded to by Mr. Edward Healy Thompson as "erotic"—a poem, explained Francis, "addressed to a child. Nay, hardly that—to the memory only of a child known but once when I was eleven years old."
[6] Lamb's jest was perhaps remembered when F. T. wrote: "If a boy were let into Heaven, he would chase the little angels to pluck the feathers out of their wings"—a justification of Boyer rather than the Boy.
[7] Prowess in English was officially reported. From Father Nowlan, a friend of the family, to Doctor Thompson, Easter, 1872:—"You will be anxious to hear how Frank has passed at the last examinations. They have been very satisfactory indeed—second in Latin and first in English. His master was speaking to me about him yesterday, and said that his English composition was the best production from a lad of his age which he had ever seen in this seminary. His improvement in Latin is also remarkable, and his steady improvement in this subject will depend in a great measure upon a cure of that absent-mindedness which certainly, at the very outset, threatened to prove a great obstacle to his application to study. This, I am happy to tell you, has disappeared in a great measure, and in a little time we may be quite sure of its entire disappearance."
To the late Monsignor Corbishly I am indebted for the following record of the place Francis held in the compositions set three times a year:—
"In Latin he was first six times, second three times, and twice he was third. The lowest place was 6th, except when he composed in so-called Latin verse, when he got 23rd. His muse could not get going in a dead language. In Greek his place ran from 2nd to 10th. In French, average place about 8th. In English, 1st sixteen times; of his Arithmetic, Algebra, and Geometry the less said the better. He was a good, quiet, shy lad. Physically, a weakling: he had a halting way of walking, and gave the impression that physical existence would be rather a struggle for him. He did practically nothing at the games. Haec habeo quae dicam de nostro poeta praeclarissimo."
[8] It pleases the idle mind of the present writer to find that Francis visited Tregunter Road when my mother, who was years later to be the lady of "Love in Dian's Lap," was staying there, unknown to him.
[9] His uncle, Edward Healy Thompson, afterwards remembered that The Opium Eater was his favourite book at home: "We had often said his experiences would surpass those of de Quincey."