INTRODUCTION.


In the earlier half of the eighteenth century there lived in the
pleasant town of Henley-upon-Thames, in Oxfordshire, one Francis
Blandy, gentleman, attorney-at-law. His wife, née Mary Stevens,
sister to Mr. Serjeant Stevens of Culham Court, Henley, and of
Doctors' Commons, a lady described as "an emblem of chastity and
virtue; graceful in person, in mind elevated," had, it was thought,
transmitted these amiable qualities to the only child of the
marriage, a daughter Mary, baptised in the parish church of Henley
on 15th July, 1720. Mr. Blandy, as a man of old family and a busy
and prosperous practitioner, had become a person of some importance
in the county. His professional skill was much appreciated by a
large circle of clients, he acted as steward for most of the
neighbouring gentry, and he had held efficiently for many years the
office of town-clerk.

But above the public respect which his performance of these varied
duties had secured him, Mr. Blandy prized his reputation as a man of
wealth. The legend had grown with his practice and kept pace with
his social advancement. The Blandys' door was open to all; their
table, "whether filled with company or not, was every day
plenteously supplied"; and a profuse if somewhat ostentatious
hospitality was the "note" of the house, a comfortable mansion on
the London road, close to Henley Bridge. Burn, in his _History of
Henley_, describes it as "an old-fashioned house near the White
Hart, represented in the view of the town facing the title-page" of
his volume, and "now [1861] rebuilt." The White Hart still survives
in Hart Street, with its courtyard and gallery, where of yore the