A Welsh Pedigree-Heroic Ancestors-Katharine of Berain-Richard Clough -Bâchygraig-The Cottons of Combermere-Parentage and Birth-Brought to London-James Quin-David Garrick-School in Queen Square-East Hyde-Sir Thomas Salusbury-Offley Place-Lady Salusbury-Dr. Collier-Hester a favourite-Hogarth-The Lady's Last Stake -Portents of Change-Mrs. King-Henry Thrale.
'I ONCE heard it asserted that few men of ever so good a family could recollect, immediately on being challenged, the maiden names of their four great grandmothers.' So wrote the subject of the following pages, at the outset of a short account which, in her later days, she drew up of her own early life. Persons thus forgetful, she added, could not be Welshmen. The clever lady who figured for many years in English society, first as Mrs. Thrale, and afterwards as Mrs. Piozzi, was a true Welshwoman, and could do much more than this. She had at her fingers' ends the pedigree of her race, beginning with 'Adam of Salzburg, younger son to Alexander, Duke of Bavaria, who came to England with the Conqueror, and obtained for his valour a fair house in Lancashire.'
Her memory was stored with
'a hoard of tales that dealt with knights, Half legend, half historic, counts and kings Who laid about them at their wills and died.'
