Memoirs | Page 9

of bric-a-brac and of antiquity awoke in me an interest allied to passion or awe, for which there was no parallel among others of my age. This was, I believe, the old spirit which had come down through the ages into my blood--the spirit which inspired Leland the Flos Grammaticorum, and after him John Leland, the antiquary of King Henry VIII., and Chrs. (Charles) Leland, who was secretary of the Society of Antiquaries in the time of Charles I. Let me hereby inform those who think that "Chrs." means Christopher, that there has been a Charles in the family since time immemorial, alternated with an Oliver since the days of Cromwell.
John Leyland, an Englishman, now living, who is a deep and sagacious scholar, and the author of the "Antiquities of the Town of Halifax" (a very clever work), declares that for four hundred years there has not been a generation in which some Leland (or Leyland) of the old Bussli de Leland stock has not written a work on antiquity or allied to antiquarianism, though in one case it is a translation of Demosthenes, and in another a work on Deistical Writers. He traces the connection with his own family of the Henry Leland, my ancestor, a rather prominent political Puritan character in his time, who first went to America in 1636, and acquired land which my grandfather still owned. It was very extensive.
There is a De la Laund in the roll of Battle Abbey, {13} but John says our progenitor was De Bussli, who came over with the Conqueror, ravaged all Yorkshire, killing 100,000 men, and who also burned up, perhaps alive, the 1,000 Jews in the Tower of York. For these eminent services to the state he was rewarded with the manor of Leyland, from which he took his name. The very first complete genealogical register of any American family ever published was that of the Leland family, by Judge Leland, of Roxbury, Mass. (but for which he was really chiefly indebted to another of the name), in which it is shown that Henry Leland had had in 1847 fifteen thousand descendants in America. In regard to which I am honoured with a membership in the Massachusetts Genealogical Society. The crest of Bussli and the rest of us is a raven or crow transfixed by an arrow, with a motto which I dearly love. It is Cui debeo, fidus. Very apropos of this crow or raven is the following: Heinrich Heine, in his "Germany" (vol. ii. p. 211, Heinemann's edition), compares the same to priests "whose pious croaking is so well known to our ears." This is in reference to such birds which fly about the mountain of Kyffhauser, in which the Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa is sleeping, and where he will sleep till they disappear. And then, praising himself, Heine adds: "But old age has weakened them, and there are good marksmen who know right well how to bring them down. I know one of these archers, who now lives in Paris, and who knows how, even from that distance, to hit the crows which fly about the Kyffhauser. When the Emperor returns to earth, he will surely find on his way more than one raven slain by this archer's arrows. And the old hero will say, smiling, 'That man carried a good bow.'" In my note to this I remarked that "the raven or crow transfixed by an arrow is the crest of the coat-of-arms of the name of Leland, or of my own. I sincerely trust that Bussli, the first who bore it, did not acquire the right to do so by shooting a clergyman." As a single crow is an omen of ill-luck, so the same transfixed signifies misfortune overcome, or the forcible ending of evil influences by a strong will. It is a common belief or saying among all the Lelands, however widely related, that there has never been a convicted criminal of the name. Dii faxint!
At four years of age, while still living in Washington Square, I was sent to an infant school in Walnut Street, above Eighth Street, south side, near by. It was kept by the Misses Donaldson. We all sat in a row, on steps, as in an amphitheatre, but in straight lines. Miss Donaldson, senior, sat at a desk, prim and perpendicular, holding a rod which was fifteen or twenty feet in length, with which she could hit on the head or poke any noisy or drowsy child, without stirring from her post. It was an ingenious invention, and one which might be employed to advantage in small churches. I can remember that at this time I could not hear a tune played without stringing my thoughts to it; not that I have any special ear for music, but