Reach me the family bible, son, said De Lancaster, and looked at his watch, observing that it wanted half an hour of midnight. He thereupon entered the day and hour of his grandson’s birth in the recording leaf of the aforesaid holy book; observing, that he would postpone engrossing the event into his pedigree roll till his attorney could attend for that purpose--I confess, added he, it is more properly the office of my bard David Williams, but as he, poor man, is blind, I shall wink at his excusing himself from that branch of his duty. I don’t see how you can well do less, said the colonel. He will be christened John, continued the old gentleman, not attending to the colonel’s remark: the links in the chain of my genealogy have long been distinguished by the alternate names of John, Robert and Philip, and the brightest of the three has fallen to his turn. The Johns have been the heroes of the family: That was my father’s name; he was a gentleman of the most punctilious honour, but he was killed in a duel with a foreign officer, who happened to tread upon the train of my mother’s gown in a ball-room. The Philips universally, without the exception of my worthy son here present, have been lovers of their ease, and my great-grandfather was very generally distinguished by the style and title of Robert the Philologist: by manuscripts, which are now in my possession, it appears, that he had been at considerable pains and study in writing comments and annotations for a new and splendid edition of the _Incredibilia_ of Palæphatus: This he did not live to complete, but he is said more than once to have declared, that he would convince the world, that Palæphatus told many more truths than he himself was aware of. Perhaps Palæphatus atoned for it, said the colonel, by telling many untruths, that he was aware of;--but is it not time to go to bed? CHAPTER IV. _Our Hero pays his first Visit to his Grandfather. The congratulatory Lay of the Minstrel._ The next morning Robert de Lancaster rose with the sun. From the window of his chamber he cast his eyes over that grand and beautiful expanse of country, which the proud and lofty site of his castle overpeered. It was the first sun, that had risen on his new-born hope, and the splendour, which that glorious luminary diffused over the animating scenery under his survey, was to a mind like his peculiarly auspicious and impressive: his bosom glowed with pious gratitude to the Supreme Dispenser of those blessings--It is too much, all-bounteous Being, he exclaimed, too much for sinful man! I am not worthy of such goodness.