troduction of Shakespeare, the cloak
incident, the trial scene, Elizabeth's death, and the terrible climax of
the noble victim's execution on the stage, seemed chiefly to interest
and excite the audience.

I wrote "Washington" principally to please my many friends in America,
whither I was going for a second time; but it rather damped me to find,
when at Philadelphia during its Grand Exhibition, and was giving
"Readings out of my own Works" through the Star Company, that my
_entrepreneur_ stoutly objected to my proposal to read this new play of
mine, with the remark,--"No, sir, our people are tired of George
Washington,--he's quite played out: give us anything else of yours you
like." As he was my financial provider, and paid well, of course I had
to acquiesce.

Perhaps the most interesting thing in the play was the account of my
discovery of Washington's heraldry: here is part of the passage; the
whole being too long to quote: one asks "Coat-of-arms?--what was this
coat-of-arms?" and Franklin answers,--

"I'll tell you, friends,
I've searched it out and known it for myself,
When late in England there, at Herald's College
And found the Washingtons of Wessyngton
In county Durham and of Sulgrave Manor,
County Northampton, bore upon their shield
Three stars atop, two stripes across the field
Gules--that is red--on white, and for the crest
An eagle's head upspringing to the light,
It's motto, Latin, "Issue proveth acts."
The architraves at Sulgrave testify,
And sundry painted windows in the hall
At Wessyngton, this was their family coat.
They took it to their new Virginian home:
And at Mount Vernon I myself have noted
An old cast-iron scutcheoned chimney-back
Charged with that heraldry."

In my first American Journal will be found more about this discovery of
mine--in 1851--then quite new even to Americans. Here in London, Mr.
Tuffley of Chelsea and Northampton has popularised the original
coat-of-arms with a view to ornamental jewellery for our Transatlantic
cousins.

Among my twelve dramatic scenes, the most appropriate to mention in this
volume of personalia, are the two which detail certain perilous matters
affecting the lives of two ancient ancestors, the one on my mother's
side, the other on my father's. The latter records the historic incident
whereby John Tupper saved the Channel Islands for William and Mary
(receiving