3. Morris, born 1715, died 1777; of the Six Clerks’ Office.
4. Elizabeth, born at York, October 2, 1720, died August 25, 1800.
5. Robert, Captain, E.I.C.S. Died in China, 1756.
6. Sarah, born September 21, 1723, died 1795.
7. William, born 1726, died 1803.
8. John, of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
9. Charles, born 1733, died 1807.
DR. CONYERS MIDDLETON
Elizabeth, the subject of this book, was about seven years old when, by the death of her uncle, Morris Drake Morris, her mother inherited, as his heir, the important property of East Horton, and Mount Morris in Kent. The family then left Yorkshire for residence at Mount Morris. But before and after their inheritance of the Kentish property much time was spent with the Conyers Middletons both at Coveney, Cambridgeshire, a property Mrs. Conyers Middleton had inherited from her first husband, Councillor Drake; the advowson of the living being hers, she bestowed it on her second husband, Dr. Conyers Middleton,[7] whom she had married in 1710; also at Cambridge, where was their usual residence, and where several of the little Robinsons were born in their grandmother’s house, as we learn from a letter of Dr. Middleton’s. Elizabeth Robinson was naturally much with her grandmother, with whom and Conyers Middleton she was a great favourite. Her nephew and adopted son, in his volumes of her letters[8] that he published in 1810, states—
“Her uncommon sensibility and acuteness of understanding, as well as extraordinary beauty as a child, rendered her an object of great notice in the University, and Dr. Middleton was in the habit of requiring from her an account of the learned conversations at which, in his society, she was frequently present; not admitting of the excuse of her tender age as a disqualification, but insisting that although at the present time she could but imperfectly understand their meaning, she would in future derive great benefit from the habit of attention inculcated by this practice.”