American.  Such associations, being wide-reaching and cosmopolitan, may be indeed considered by every man of culture as patriotic, and I hope at some future day that I shall still further prove that, as regards my native country, I have only changed my sky but not my heart, and laboured for American interests as earnestly as ever.

Charles Godfrey Leland.

Bagni di Lucca, Italy, August 20, 1893.

I.  EARLY LIFE.  1824-1837.

My birthplace—Count Bruno and Dufief—Family items—General Lafayette—The Dutch witch-nurse—Early friends and associations—Philadelphia sixty years ago—Early reading—Genealogy—First schools—Summers in New England—English influences—The Revolutionary grandfather—Centenarians—The last survivor of the Boston Tea-party and the last signer of the Declaration—Indians—Memories of relations—A Quaker school—My ups and downs in classes—Arithmetic—My first ride in a railway car—My marvellous invention—Mr. Alcott’s school—A Transcendental teacher—Rev. W. H. Furness—Miss Eliza Leslie—The boarding-school near Boston—Books—A terrible winter—My first poem—I return to Philadelphia.

I was born on the 15th of August, 1824, in a house which was in Philadelphia, and in Chestnut Street, the second door below Third Street, on the north side.  It had been built in the old Colonial time, and in the room in which I first saw life there was an old chimney-piece, which was so remarkable that strangers visiting the city often came to see it.  It was, I believe, of old carved oak, possibly mediæval, which had been brought from some English manor as a relic.  I am indebted for this information to a Mr. Landreth, who lived in the house at the time. [1]

It was then a boarding-house, kept by a Mrs. Rodgers.  She had taken it from a lady who had also kept it for boarders.  The daughter of this latter married President Madison.  She was the well-known “Dolly Madison,” famous for her grace, accomplishments, and belle humeur, of whom there are stories still current in Washington.

My authority informed me that there were among the boarders in the house two remarkable men, one of whom often petted me as a babe, and took a fancy to me.  He was a Swedish Count, who had passed, it was said, a very wild life as pirate for several years on the Spanish Main.  He was identified as the Count Bruno of Frederica Bremer’s novel, “The Neighbours.”  The other was the famous philologist, Dufief, author of “Nature Displayed,” a work of such remarkable ability that I wonder that it should have passed into oblivion.

My mother had been from her earliest years devoted to literature to a degree which was unusual at that time in the United States.  She had been, as a girl, a special protégée of Hannah Adams, the author of many learned works, who was the first person buried in the Mount Auburn Cemetery of Boston.  She directed my mother’s reading, and had great

influence over her.  My mother had also been very intimate with the daughters of Jonathan Russell, the well-known diplomatist.  My maternal grandfather was Colonel Godfrey, who had fought in the war of the Revolution, and who was at one time an aide-de-camp of the Governor of Massachusetts.  He was noted for the remarkable gentleness of his character.  I have heard that when he went forth of a morning, all the animals on his farm would run to meet and accompany him.  He had to a miraculous degree a certain sympathetic power, so that all beings, men included, loved him.  I have heard my mother say that as a girl she had a tame crow who was named Tom, and that he could distinctly cry the word “What?”  When Tom was walking about in the garden, if called, he would reply “What?” in a perfectly human manner.

When I was one month old, General Lafayette visited our city and passed in a grand procession before the house.  It is one of the legends of my infancy that my nurse said, “Charley shall see the General too!” and held me up to the window.  General Lafayette, seeing this, laughed and bowed to me.  He was the first gentleman who ever saluted me formally.  When I reflect how in later life adventure, the study of languages, and a French Revolution came into my experiences, it seems to me as if Count Bruno, Dufief, and Lafayette had all been premonitors of the future.

I was a great sufferer from many forms of ill-health in my infancy.  Before my second birthday, I had a terrible illness with inflammation of the brain.  Dr. Dewees (author of a well-known work on diseases of women and children), who attended me, said that I was insane for a week, and that it was a case without parallel.  I mention this because I believe that I owe to it in a degree whatever nervousness and tendency to “idealism” or romance and poetry has subsequently been developed in me.  Through all my childhood and youth its influence was terribly felt, nor have I to this day recovered from it.

I should mention that my first nurse in life was an old Dutch woman named Van der Poel.  I had not been born many days before I and my cradle were missing.  There was a prompt outcry and search, and both were soon found in the garret or loft of the house.  There I lay sleeping, on my breast an open Bible, with, I believe, a key and knife, at my head lighted candles, money, and a plate of salt.  Nurse Van der Poel explained that it was done to secure my rising in life—by taking me up to the garret.  I have since learned from a witch that the same is still done in exactly the same manner in Italy, and in Asia.  She who does it must be, however, a strega or sorceress (my nurse was reputed to be one), and the child thus initiated will become deep in darksome lore, an adept in occulta, and a scholar.  If I have not turned out to be all of this in majoribus, it was not the fault of my nurse.

Next door to us lived a family in which were four daughters who grew up to be famous belles.  It is said that when the poet N. P. Willis visited them, one of these young ladies, who was familiar with his works, was so overcome that she fainted.  Forty years after Willis distinctly recalled the circumstance.  Fainting was then fashionable.

Among the household friends of our family I can remember Mr. John Vaughan, who had legends of Priestley, Berkeley, and Thomas Moore, and who often dined with us on Sunday.  I can also recall his personal reminiscences of General Washington, Jefferson, and all the great men of the previous generation.  He was a gentle and beautiful old man, with very courtly manners and snow-white hair, which he wore in a queue.  He gave away the whole of a large fortune to the poor.  Also an old Mr. Crozier, who had been in France through all the French Revolution, and had known Robespierre, Marat, Fouquier Tinville, &c.  I wish that I had betimes noted down all the anecdotes I ever heard from them.  There were also two old ladies, own nieces of Benjamin Franklin, who for many years continually took tea with

us.  One of them, Mrs. Kinsman, presented me with the cotton quilt under which her uncle had died.  Another lady, Miss Louisa Nancrede, who had been educated in France, had seen Napoleon, and often described him to me.  She told me many old