Francis Newbery, the only son who survived his father, John, and whose autobiography we have frequently quoted in the preceding pages, continued the business in the direct line, and his grandsons to-day (1885) carry on the patent medicine trade on which John Newbery first embarked, while yet a young man, at Reading. The literary associations of Francis Newbery the younger, as he was called to distinguish him from Francis Newbery, the nephew of John, were not nearly so numerous or important as those of his father; but there is sufficient of old-time interest in this autobiography to lead us to believe that a summary of its more important features will be acceptable to our readers. Much that refers to his father has been extracted and set in its proper place in the account of John Newbery's life, and is not repeated in this chapter. The MS. from which we quote is an autograph, and is entitled “The Life of the Author, written by Himself.” It was apparently intended to form an introduction to a new edition of the book, “Donum Amicis.” In abbreviating it, I have generally left the author to speak for himself, only omitting those passages which are of personal interest, or (as so many of them are) simply the expression of personal vanity.

He was born at Reading, on the 6th of July 1743, old style; and in 1752 he was sent to a grammar school kept by the Rev. Mr Reynolds, at Ramsgate, for the benefit of sea bathing, in consequence of the ravages of the small-pox, with which he had been so grievously afflicted as to be deprived almost of the use of his left eye.