I now write for the third time since I left old England. I wrote a letter, dated October 8th; and finding that it would have four weeks to lay, I was afraid you would not have it; and as I told you I would write the truth, if I was forced to beg my bread from door to door, so I now proceed. Dear children, I write to let you know that we are all in good health, excepting your mother; and she is now just put to bed of another son, and she is as well as can be expected. And now as it respects what I have got in America: I have got 12-1/2 acres of land, about half improved, and the rest in the state of nature, and two cows of my own. We can buy good land for 18s. per acre; but buying of land is not one quarter part, for the land is as full of trees as your woods are of stubs; and they are from four to ten rods long, and from one to five feet through them. You may buy land here from 18s. to 9l. in English money; and it will bring from 20 to 40 bushels of wheat per acre, and corn from 20 to 50 bushels per acre, and rye from 20 to 40 ditto. You may buy beef for 1-3/4d. per pound; and mutton the same; Irish butter 7d. per pound; cheese 3d.; tea 4s. 6d.; sugar 7d. per pound; candles 7d.; soap 7d.; and wheat 4s. 6d. per bushel; corn and rye 2s. per bushel. And I get 2s. 4d. a day and my board; and have as much meat to eat, three times a day, as I like to eat. But clothing is dear; shoes 8s.; half boots 16s.; calico from 8d. to 1s. 4d.; stockings 2s. 9d. to 3s. 6d.; flannel 4s. per yard; superfine cloth from 4s. 6d. to 1l.; now all this is counted in English money. We get 4s. per day in summer, and our board; and if you count the difference of the money, you will soon find it out; 8s. in our money is 4s. 6d. in your money.

The reader will perhaps think we give only the "milk and honey" of these letters, but they bear the stamp of authenticity.

KENILWORTH

Every body knows the delightful romance of Kenilworth,—a tragedy, of which the dramatis personae are the parties themselves, called up from their graves by the novelist magician. Students who attend St. Mary's Church, Oxford, still look out for the flat stone which covers the dust and bones of poor Amy, and could any sculptured effigies supply the place of the whole historical picture, then imagined in the mind's eye? More than once attracted by the old ballad,1 we have, when undergraduates, walked to the "lonely towers of Cumnor Hall," fancied that we saw her struggle, and heard her screams, when she was thrown over the staircase (the traditional mode of her assassination,) and wondered how any man could have the heart to murder a simple lovesick pretty girl. Even now, in sorrow and in sadness, we read this account:—

The unfortunate Amye Duddley (for so she subscribes herself in the Harleian Manuscript, 4712,) the first wife of Lord Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth's favourite, and after Amy's death Earl of Leicester, was daughter of Sir John Robsart. Her marriage took place June 4, 1550, the day following that on which her lord's eldest brother had been united to a daughter of the Duke of Somerset, and the event is thus recorded by King Edward in his Diary: "4. S. Robert dudeley, third sonne to th' erle of warwic, married S. John Robsartes daughter; after wich mariage ther were certain gentlemen that did strive who shuld first take away a gose's heade wich was hanged alive on tow crose postes." Soon after the accession of Elizabeth, when Dudley's ambitious views of a royal alliance had opened upon him, his countess mysteriously died at the retired mansion of Cumnor near Abingdon,2 Sept. 8, 1560; and, although the mode of her death is imperfectly ascertained (her body was thrown down stairs, as a blind,) there appears far greater foundation for supposing the earl guilty of her murder, than usually belongs to such rumours, all her other attendants being absent at Abingdon fair, except Sir Richard Verney and his man. The circumstances, distorted by gross anachronisms, have been weaved into the delightful romance of "Kenilworth."

Of the goose and posts, we can suggest no better explanation than that the goose was intended for poor Amy, and the cross posts for the Protector Somerset, and his rival Dudley Duke of Northumberland, both of whom were bred to the devil's trade, ambition. Others may be possessed of more successful elucidation. At all events, it is plain that the people had a very suspicious opinion of Leicester, amounting to this, that he was a great rascal, who played a deep game, and stuck at nothing which he could do without danger to himself.3– Gentleman's Magazine.

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 376, June 20, 1829

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