. Lechmere and Sir Francis Palgrave.

ARUN.

[We avail ourselves of this opportunity of inserting the following
extract from Mr. Rowland Hill's _Post-Office Reform; its Importance and
Practicability_, p. 86. of the third edition, published in 1837, as it
shows clearly the use which Mr. Rowland Hill made of the story in his
great work of Postage Reform; and that Miss Martineau had clearly no
authority for fathering the story in question upon that gentleman:--

"Coleridge tells a story which shows how much the Post-office is open
to fraud, in consequence of the option as to pre-payment which now
exists. The story is as follows:--

'One day, when I had not a shilling which I could spare, I was passing
by a cottage not far from Keswick, where a letter-carrier was demanding
a shilling for a letter, which the woman of the house appeared
unwilling to pay, and at last declined to take. I paid the postage, and
when the man was out of sight, she told me that the letter was from her
son, who took that means of letting her know that he was well; the
letter was _not to be paid for_. It was then opened and found to be
blank!'[1]

"This trick is so obvious a one that in all probability it is
extensively practised."]

[Footnote 1: _Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T.
Coleridge_, vol. ii. p. 114.]

The quotations of your correspondent G. P. P., from Polwhele's _Cornwall_,
relate to the same individual, and a more general construction must, I
think, be put upon the expression "our countryman," than that it inferred a
native of the county. The family of Prideaux was one of great antiquity,
and originated in Cornwall (their first seat being at Prideaux Castle
there), and had estates there in the time of the above Edmund. His father,
Sir Edmund Prideaux, of Netherton (the first baronet), studied the law in
the Inner Temple, where he became very eminent for his skill and learning.
He is stated to have raised a large estate in the counties of Devon and
Cornwall. He married * * *; secondly, Catherine, daughter of Piers
Edgecombe, of Mount Edgecombe, Esq., by whom he had two sons, Sir Peter his
successor, and Edmund, the subject of your correspondent's Queries, who is
thus described in Prince's _Worthies of Devon_, p. 509.:--

"This gentleman was bred to the law, and of so great a reputation, as
well for zeal to religion as skill in the l