_Margaret Catchpole_ is the classic novel of Suffolk. That county of soothing landscape and bracing sea has produced greater books; it has given us more interesting authors than Richard Cobbold. Within its borders were written the many fine poems of George Crabbe, the many attractive letters of Edward Fitz Gerald. The remarkable paraphrase from the Persian known to all the English speaking world as _The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám_ was composed here. But, although many latter-day novelists have laid their scenes in these pleasant places, made memorable by the art of Constable, not one has secured so fascinating a topic or so world-wide an audience. Margaret Catchpole is one of the few heroines of fiction of whom one loves to remember that she was real flesh and blood. CLEMENT SHORTER. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: _Poems by Mrs. Elizabeth Cobbold, with a Memoir of the Author._ Ipswich: Printed and sold by J. Raw in the Butter Market, 1825.] [Footnote 2: The three most talked of books by Elizabeth Cobbold were:--_The Mince Pye_, an Heroic Epistle, humbly addressed to the Sovereign Dainty of a British Feast, by Caroline Petty Pasty, 1800. _Cliff Valentines_, 1813. _An Ode to the Victory of Waterloo_, 1815. The suggestion is made in the _Dictionary of National Biography_ that she was descended on the mother's side from Edmund Waller the poet, but this is exceedingly improbable.] [Footnote 3: Dr. Spencer Cobbold, of Batheston, Somerset, a grandson of Richard Cobbold, and the son of T. Spencer Cobbold, M.D. (1828-1886), the distinguished helminthologist, who was the youngest F.R.S. of his day. He had made some original investigations concerning Entozoa, and was the author of many books on "Parasites" and kindred subjects.] [Footnote 4: At the Tower Church. He lived at St. Margaret's Green.] [Footnote 5: _Public Men of Ipswich and East Suffolk_, by Richard Gowing. Ipswich: W. J. Scopes, 1875.] [Footnote 6: The following books by Richard Cobbold are in the British Museum Library:-- _Valentine Verses, or Lines of Truth, Love, and Virtue_ 1827 _A Sermon on Matthew xiv_ 1829 _The Spirit of the Litany of the Church of England._ A Poem 1833 _The History of Margaret Catchpole, a Suffolk Girl._ 2 vols. 1845 _Mary Anne Wellington. A Soldier's Daughter, Wife and Widow._ 3 vols. 1846 _Zenon the Martyr._ 3 vols. 1847 _The Young Man's Home, or The Penitent's Return_ 1848 _The Character of Woman._ A Lecture 1848 _A Voice from the Mount_ 1848 _A Sermon on Genesis i. 3_ 1849 _Conversations between J. Rye and Mr. Parr_ 1848