An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY August, W. Wareham, an old client, was drowned at Ilfracombe, trying to save a woman. The autumn I spent as usual on the Broads and latter on took my wife a round by Sheerness, Chatham, Rochester, &c., followed with excursions to St. Albans,. Canterbury and Ramsgate, where we saw the celebrated Sir John Bennett and his then temporary wife at the Granville. On the 31st October, 1887, I published the last part of the third volume of the first serjes of the Norfolk Anti– quarian Miscellany~in the preface stating that, as the manage– ment of the Norfolk i3-nd Norwich Archreological Society had now come into the hands of one eminently qualified to restore the society to the position it formerly held (the Rev. W .. Hudson), there wa no reason for the continu8.tion of the Norfolk Antiquariah Miscellany, an<l that the present part,. therefore, would clo ·e the series. Unhappily the autocracy which followed did not have the results I hoped, and I had to resume the publi~ation as mentioned hereafter. This part contafos (i.a.) a paper by myself on "The Murder of Amy Robsart, a brief for the prosecution," which was the result of much independent search, and which was afterwards published separately as a pamphlet (Elliot Stock).. It collected besides niy independent work all that had hitherto been written on the subject by previous writers, and I think any unprejud~ed reader will come to my con– clusion that Elizabeth was probably an accessory after the fact to the murder. The part also contained a vocabulary of East Anglia,. which I afterwards expanded into a volume for the English Dialect Society, and an article on Norfolk Genealogy and Heraldry, which similarly formed the germ of my published index. The Christmas week was spent on the Broads as usual. with M. Wilson as guest. Early in the year 1888 I had my first short experience at pigeon shooting at Sole Street, but as may be judged from the fact that I secured ro pigeons (and a pocket fuU of half-crowns) out of 13 with a single gun, the pigeons must have been of a very low class indeed, for want of practice I never could hit flying birds if strong on the wing. In March (r888) I had a business journey to York where the Cathedral disappointed me. I went on to– Edinburgh for the first time and stayed at the "Royal.".