Sir,—The family of Farmers from which we are descended, were living about the year of our Lord, 1500, at a village called Ratcliffe-Cuiley, which is in Leicestershire, and adjoining the Counties of Warwick and Stafford. One of them was a Judge in the Court of Common Pleas, and you observe by the scrap enclosed, another of them, Chancellor of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury, which scrap is the hand-writing of the author on the learning of Shakspeare. Most of them are buried in a vault belonging to the family, in the church of Witherly, (near Ratcliffe) in the County of Leicester. My grandfather's name was Richard, who married a Miss Knibb, and their family consisted of Richard, [b. May 4, 1735,] the annotator on our immortal bard, Prebendary of Canterbury, then a Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's, London, the Master of Emmanuel College in Cambridge, and principal Librarian of that University; John, in holy Orders; Thomas, my father, [b. May 10, 1744,] who married the 3rd dau. of John Andrew, Esq., of Harlestone-Park in the County of Northampton; Joseph, Lieut. Col. of the Royal Leicester volunteers; Hannah, unmarried; Sarah married Allen Brown, Esq., of Cosby, near Leicester, and afterwards Richard Jervis, a surgeon of Latterworth; Mary married [in 1768,] the Hon. Richard Byron, [b. Oct. 28, 1724,] brother of the late Lord [William] Byron.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] See Camden's Remains, 4to, London, 1603.
[5] Skinner's Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicanæ. Spelman's Glossarium Archæologicum.
[6] MS. Letter. See Appendix.
[7] Dodson's Memoirs.
[8] Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ii. 618.—Burnet's Own Times, ii. 699.—Salmon's Geog. Gram.—Hume.—Goldsmith, &c.
[9] Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses.
[10] Guillim's Heraldry, 310.
[11] Guillim's Heraldry, 186.