On the whole, I suspect you would have used Ancestor Squire as you have used many others who have helped you to materials of his kind; like a sucked orange: you would have tossed him into the dirt carelessly, I doubt; and then what would Squire minor have said? Yet he himself did not like all his Ancestor had done; the _secret_ service, which our Squire called '_spy-age_'; going to Holland with messages and despatches which he was to deliver to some one who was to meet him on the quay, and show him a gold ring; the man with the gold ring supposed to be the Stadtholder! I tried to persuade our friend there was no great shame in being an agent of this sort; but he said with a light rap on the table that _he_ wouldn't do such a thing. I have now told you something of what remains in my head after our conference; but you must see the man. What gave us the idea of his being old was his old-fashioned notions; he and his family have lived in Peterboro' and such retired places these three hundred years; and amazing as it may seem to us that any people should be ashamed that their ancestors fought for Low Church, yet two hundred years are but as a day in a Cathedral Close. Nothing gives one more the idea of the Sleeping Palace than that. Esto perpetua! I mean, as long as I live at least. When I expressed wonder to Squire that his wife's friends, or his Peterboro' friends, should be so solicitous about the world's ever knowing that their ancestors had received letters from Cromwell, he very earnestly assured me that he knew some cases in which persons' advancement in public life had been suddenly stopt by the Queen or her ministers, when it got wind that they were related in any way to Cromwell! I thought this a piece of dotage, as I do now; but I have heard elsewhere of some one not being allowed to take the name of Cromwell; I mean not very many years back; but more likely under a George than under a Victoria. I think Squire must be a little crazy on this score; that is, the old dotage of a Cathedral town superstition worked up into activity by a choleric disposition. He seems, as I told you, of the sanguine temperament; and he mentioned a long illness during which he was not allowed to read a book, etc., which looks like some touch of the head. Perhaps brain fever. Perhaps no such thing, but all my fancy. He was very civil; ordered in a bottle of Sherry and biscuits: asked me to dine, which I could not do. And so ends my long story. But you must see him. Yours, E. F. G. He spoke of a portrait of Oliver that had been in his family since Oliver's time--till sold for a few shillings to some one in Norwich by some rascal relation. The portrait unlike all he has seen in painting or engraving: very pale, very thoughtful, very commanding, he says. If he ever recovers it, he will present you with it; he says if it should cost him 10 pounds--for he admires you. {220} _To Bernard Barton_. EXETER, _August_ 16/47. MY DEAR BARTON,