I confess I never knew a Suffolk man at home or abroad who would take any pride in being the fellow countryman of this clerical novel-writer; but in different parts of England I have seen reason to believe that our division of the eastern counties has a place in the minds of many thousands of people only by reason of the Rev. Richard Cobbold and his works, that the ancient town of Ipswich, which we hail from as if it were a niche in the temple of fame, has never been heard of except as the scene of some of the chief adventures of Margaret Catchpole.[5] Other books are assigned to our author in the catalogues, but I doubt if one of them survives other than _Margaret Catchpole_, which not only survives, but is really a classic in its way. One story, indeed, _Freston Tower_, held the public for a time almost as well as the present book, but I imagine it has ceased to command the attention even of the most remote village library, where indeed it was long ago worn threadbare.[6] Essentially our author is a man of one book, and many adventitious circumstances helped him here. It was no small thing that the heroine should actually have been a native of the very district in which the writer lived. She was not merely a vivid tradition of his boyhood, but had been in the service of his mother and had stolen from his father the horse that gave her so unpleasant a notoriety. Here was a romance ready to hand, which needed but to be set down in passably good writing to attract attention. It might have been worse written than it was by this worthy clergyman and would still have secured readers. How much is truth and how much is fiction in the story will never be known. If Mr. Cobbold had an abundance of documents about this girl Margaret Catchpole and her affairs, inherited from his parents, he must have destroyed them. He claims in the course of the story that, as Margaret three times saved the life of a member of Mr. Cobbold's family, it is not surprising that the records of her life should be so strictly preserved among them. But these records do not appear to exist any longer. It is doubtful if they ever did exist. The author probably worked from family traditions rather than from documents. He possessed, in addition, a genuine imaginative faculty. Such documents as do exist do not amount to enough to justify the author's declaration that here is "a perfectly true narrative". Mr. Frank Woolnough, of Ipswich[7], courteously informs me that a letter by Margaret Catchpole, written only a few days before she sailed to Australia, and the lyre bird that she sent to her mistress about a year after her arrival, are the two curiosities of the Museum most eagerly inquired after by strangers. Here is the letter in question:-- ipswich May 25th 1801 honred madam