FRANCIS E. PAGET.
Elford Rectory,
September, mdcccxlvi.
CONTENTS.
| Page. | |
|---|---|
| Introduction | [xi]. |
| CHAPTER I. | |
| The Heir and many Friends | [1] |
| CHAPTER II. | |
| The Hunting of the Heir | [23] |
| CHAPTER III. | |
| Another Heir started | [55] |
| CHAPTER IV. | |
| A Hashed Heir | [79] |
| CHAPTER V. | |
| The Heirs on their Travels | [121] |
| CHAPTER VI. | |
| Experiments on the Heir | [163] |
Introduction.
“‘A Fairy tale, by William Churne of Staffordshire!’ And who may he be? I am sure I never heard of him before.”
“Say you so, gentle Reader? Well, perhaps, after all, there is nothing very extraordinary in the fact that a man who was born some two hundred and fifty years ago should be forgotten. Well I wot that William Churne is not the only one who is in that predicament. And yet my name has had a better chance of being remembered than that of many of my cotemporaries, who, in their day, were more illustrious than ever I was; for it has been wedded, look you, to immortal verse. Doctor Corbet, Bishop of Norwich,—‘the wittie Bishop,’ as King James the First was wont to call him—conferred on me the title of Registrar-General to the Fairies. Have you never read his ‘Fairies’ Farewell’? They say, indeed, that his poems, like many better things, are little read now-a-days; but you will find it among the ballads collected by a congenial spirit (a prelate likewise), Bishop Percy of Dromore. His ‘Reliques of Ancient Poetry,’ you are surely conversant withal? But stay, I see you have forgotten the passage, which my vanity, perhaps, has preserved in my memory for so many years. Thus, then, Richard Corbet speaks of me in connection with those merry elves, whom he supposes to have taken their final farewell of that land, which, since their presence was withdrawn, has deserved the name of merry England no longer:—
‘Now, they have left our quarters;