Читать книгу The Ingoldsby Legends; or, Mirth and Marvels - Thomas Ingoldsby - Страница 14

Respect for the feelings of an honourable family,—nearly connected with the Ingoldsbys,—has induced me to veil the real "sponsorial and patronymic appellations" of my next hero under a sobriquet interfering neither with rhyme nor rhythm.[7] I shall merely add that every incident in the story bears, on the face of it, the stamp of veracity, and that many "persons of honour" in the county of Berks, who well recollected Sir George Rooke's expedition against Gibraltar, would, if they were now alive, gladly bear testimony to the truth of every syllable.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Pack o' nonsense!—Every body as belongs to him is dead and gone—and every body knows that the poor young gentleman's real name wasn't Sobriquet at all, but Hampden Pye, Esq., and that one of his uncles—or cousins—used to make verses about the king and the queen, and had a sack of money for doing it every year;—and that's his picture in the blue coat and little gold-laced cocked hat, that hangs on the stairs over the door of the passage that leads to the blue room.—Sobriquet!—but there!—The Squire wrote it after dinner!

Elizabeth Botherby.