scenes described in the following pages were enacted, most of the actors have passed away, the letters are rather calculated to prove the worthiness, foresight, and originality of the writer than to inflict pain upon the surviving friends and relations of the individuals to whom allusion has been made.

Taking advantage of the authority vested in him to write a biographical account of General Nott from such materials as were available, and to render such narrative the thread, as it were, on which the letters were to be strung, the Editor has dwelt with unmitigated pleasure upon the features of a life rendered illustrious by the practice of virtue and the assertion of mental independence. To the officers of the British army, and most especially that portion of it which is in the pay of the East India Company, the Memoir will read a peculiarly instructive lesson. General Nott was a model officer. All the finest qualities of the soldier were, as, it is submitted, the volumes continually show, embodied in his person, and developed in his actions. To yield and to exact obedience to believe himself at all times the representative of the honour of his country, and of the profession of which he was a distinguished member;-to earn, by appropriate means, the love and confidence of those whom he commanded, and to hold in utter abhorrence anything

which savoured of meanness, trickery, poltroonery, and intrigue-were the tenets of Nott's military faith. If other soldiers learn from the study of his brilliant career to hold by the same exalted principles, the labours of the biographer will not have been thrown away.

The temptation to wander from the personal career of Sir William Nott into disquisitions upon political objects and measures, and descriptions of episodical occurrences, has been great, but remembering that the highest praise awarded to the Editor's "Life of the Duke of Wellington' was, that he always kept the subject of his biography in view, he has resisted every inclination to deviate from the personal part of the narrative, and has placed all the supplementary matter in a copious Appendix.

MILITIA NOTT OBTAINS A CADETSHIP BECOMES A LIEUTENANTIS SENT ON AN EXPEDITION-COURT-MARTIAL.

THE influence which a long line of noble ancestors has exercised upon men of well-regulated minds, is too notorious to make it a matter of indifference to biographers, whether the subject of their story can or cannot be heralded into notice by the display of a pedigree dating from the Conqueror. They are only too glad to show how each successive inheritor of a name famous for the prowess of its earliest possessor, has preserved it unsullied, transmitting it as an encouragement to the next generation to tread the path of honour, and how their special hero has, by the worthiness of his life, cast fresh lustre upon the roll of noble ancestry.

VOL. I.

B

In the absence, however, of a "lang pedigree," the next best thing is to be able to show that the individual whose career it is proposed to describe, was the first great man of his name, the architect of his own fortune, the founder of the reputation of the family. We honour the fine pride of the Bourbons and the Howards, who regulated their lives by the chivalry of their progenitors; but much more do we love the men who, influenced by moral principle, and gifted with intellectual powers and noble impulses, carve out for themselves an independent path of action, and set up a light, whose extensive radiations cheer, illume, and elevate all about and beyond them.

Of the latter order was William Nott, who, deriving nothing from his ancestors, has bequeathed to posterity a military reputation few modern soldiers have been enabled to achieve.

The father of William Nott was a native of the village of Shobdan, in Herefordshire. For many generations his forefathers had been settled in that county, enjoying universal respect as British yeomen of high character. To this hour there are several of the name still in the village, and likewise at Leominster, Bromyard, &c.; and they are not the less proud of the patronymic, in that, of late years, a halo has been cast around it by the deeds of the subject of this memoir.

Mr. Charles Nott, for such was the name of William's father, appears to have left his native village

early in life, and to have settled in London. Here he became acquainted with a Miss Bailey, and a mutual regard was soon established. Miss Bailey was a native of Seeding, near Loddon, in Norfolk. She derived the advantage of a good education, and almost parental care from her uncle, Mr. Harvey of Bungay, who was the proprietor of a large academy, and who married an aunt of England's greatest naval hero, the immortal Nelson.

Charles Nott married Miss Bailey at St. Andrew's Church, Holborn; and, almost immediately afterwards, went to Holt, in Wiltshire. Farming was his métier, and as he understood it as thoroughly as it was understood in those days, he anticipated a prosperous

career.

On the 20th of January, 1783, William Nott came into the world. Another son had preceded him, but, though second, he became first in the "dear love" of his father.

Twelve years subsequent to this event, the late Sir Herbert Mackworth, of Gnoll Castle, near Neath in Glamorganshire, having had his attention drawn to the ability of Mr. Charles Nott as an agriculturist, invited him to go and establish himself upon an extensive farm near Neath, and Nott yielded to the invitation.

The vale of Nedd, as it anciently was called, may, in picturesque beauty, challenge a comparison with the most attractive spots in Wales. A river serpentines through the valley, and forms the boundary of Gower, a