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 CHAPTER XIV.

JOSEPH WOODFALL EBSWORTH, M.A., F.S.A.

the 27th of June, 1908, a short note appeared from my pen on Ebsworth, but all lovers of ballad history will, I am sure, be interested in fuller particulars of his life and work. On his death the whole of his MSS. passed into my possession, and although they are too extensive for me at present to go through entirely, I have been able to cull from them, as well as from the letters which I received from him weekly without intermission during the past twenty years, sufficient to give particulars of his active and busy life. These letters, which would frequently run into many pages, beautifully and closely written, contain much pungent criticism on the literature of the day. Ebsworth loved deeply and hated fiercely; he was a man of warm attachments and of strong dislikes, both in literature and in his friendships. This characteristic, which allowed him no middle course, added a charm to all his writings, while to those whom he regarded as his friends he was a most delightful personality. Ebsworth's surroundings were from his earliest years such as to encourage taste both in literature and in art. His parents were accomplished dramatists and musicians. He wrote the memoirs of them which appear in the 'Dictionary of National Biography,' and he has often spoken to me of his great affection for them.

Ebsworth was born on the 2nd of September, 1824, at 3, Gray's Walk, Lambeth, and was christened at Lambeth Church. Just across the river, in Dean's Yard, Westminster, lived Thomas Woodfall, of 18, Little Queen Street, Westminster, the son of the printer of the Junius letters; he became the boy's godfather, and was very fond of him. Ebsworth would often tell me of one specially happy day spent with Woodfall at Westminster when he was nine years old. It is curious that Ebsworth held strongly the view that Francis wrote the Junius letters, and he was often angry because The Athenæum devoted so much space to the question. The Woodfalls' opinions were directly the reverse of this. Henry Sampson Woodfall affirmed that "Sir Philip Francis did not write the letters."