LONDON:
PRINTED FOR LACKINGTON, ALLEN, AND CO.
TEMPLE OF THE MUSES,
FINSBURY-SQUARE.
———
1809.
Harding and Wright, Printers, St. John’s Square.
JOHN DE LANCASTER.
BOOK THE FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
The Reader is made acquainted with the Family of De Lancaster.
On the first of March 1751, Robert De Lancaster, a native of North Wales, and grandfather of my hero, had assembled his friends and neighbours to celebrate, according to custom, the anniversary of their tutelary saint.
I enter at once upon my story without any introduction, having already announced this novel in my Memoirs, and I flatter myself, if it is perused with that candour, to which fair dealing has some claim, it will serve to entertain the major part of its readers, disappoint not many and corrupt not one.
Robert de Lancaster was a gentleman of great respectability, and Kray-castle, the venerable seat of his family through many generations, lost nothing of its long-established fame for hospitality on this occasion: the gentry were feasted, and the poor were not forgotten.