The frontispiece is from a print, published by Henry Colburn in 1836,
after the portrait by Simpson, the favourite pupil of Sir Thomas
Lawrence, which was "considered more like him than any other." Count
D'Orsay took a portrait of Marryat, in coloured crayons, about 1840, but
it was not a success. A portrait, in water colours, by Behnes, was
engraved as a frontispiece to _The Pirate and The Three Cutters._ His
bust was taken by Carew.

R.B.J.




Frederick Marryat


Without yielding implicit credence to the handsome pedigree of the
Marryats supplied by Mrs Lean, the novelist's daughter, we may give a
glance in passing to the first-fruits of this family tree. They--
naturally--came over with the Conqueror, and emerged from obscurity
under Stephen as the proud "possessors of much lands at the village of
Meryat, Ashton Meryat, and elsewhere in Somersetshire ... One Nicotas de
Maryet is deputed to collect the ransom of Richard Coeur de Leon through
the county of Somerset ... In the reign of Edward I., Sir John de
Maryet is called to attend the Great Parliament; in that of Edward II.,
his son is excommunicated for embowelling his deceased wife; 'a fancy,'
says the county historian, 'peculiar to the knightly family of Meryat.'"
Mrs Lean quotes records of other Meryat "hearts" to which an honourable
burial has been accorded. The house of Meryat finally lost its property
on the fall of Lady Jane Grey, to whom it had descended through the