Chapter 15 - Page 2

Warden,--hardly quite feeling, however, the
noble sentiment which he expressed,--"it is better to be the first
noble illustrator of a name than even the worthy heir of a name that
has been noble and famous for a thousand years. The highest pride of
some of our peers, who have won their rank by their own force, has been
to point to the cottage whence they sprung. Your posterity, at all
events, will have the advantage of you,--they will know their
ancestor."

Redclyffe sighed, for there was truly a great deal of the foolish
yearning for a connection with the past about him; his imagination had
taken this turn, and the very circumstances of his obscure birth gave
it a field to exercise itself.

"I advise you," said the Warden, by way of changing the conversation,
"to look over the excellent history of the county which you are now in.
There is no reading better, to my mind, than these country histories;
though doubtless a stranger would hardly feel so much interest in them
as one whose progenitors, male or female, have strewn their dust over
the whole field of which the history treats. This history is a fine
specimen of the kind."

The work to which Redclyffe's attention was thus drawn was in two large
folio volumes, published about thirty years before, bound in calf by
some famous artist in that line, illustrated with portraits and views
of ruined castles, churches, cathedrals, the seats of nobility and
gentry; Roman, British, and Saxon remains, painted windows, oak
carvings, and so forth.

And as for its contents the author ascended for the history of the
county as far as into the pre-Roman ages, before Caesar had ever heard
of Britain; and brought it down, an ever swelling and increasing tale,
to his own days; inclusive of the separate histories, and pedigrees,
and hereditary legends, and incidents, of all the principal families.
In this latter branch of information, indeed, the work seemed
particularly full, and contained every incident that would have worked
well into historical romance.

"Aye, aye," said the Warden, laughing at some strange incident of this
sort which Redclyffe read out to him. "My old friend Gibber, the
learned author of this work, (he has been dead this score of years, so
he will not mind my saying it,) had a little too much the habit of
seeking his authorities in the cottage chimney-corners. I mean that an
old woman's tale was just about as acceptable to him as a recorded
fact; and to say the truth, they are really apt to have ten times the
life in them."

Redclyffe saw in the volume a full account of the founding of the
Hospital, its regulations and purposes, its edifices; all of which he
reserved