Identifier: cu31924104001791 ()
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I have only to say further, in the way of introduction, a word
or two as to my descent and parentage. On occasion of the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1688, a surgeon of the
name of Martineau, and a family of the name of Pierre, crossed
the Channel, and settled with other Huguenot refugees, in Eng-
land. My ancestor married a young lady of the Pierre family,
and settled in Norwich, where his descendants afforded a succes-
sion of surgeons up to my own day. My eminent uncle, Mr.
Philip Meadows Martineau, and my eldest brother, who died
before the age of thirty, were the last Norwich surgeons of the
name. — My grandfather, who was one of the honorable series,
died at the age of forty-two, of a fever caught among his poor
patients. He left a large family, of whom my father was the
youngest. When established as a Norwich manufacturer, my
father married Elizabeth Rankin, the eldest daughter of a sugar-
refiner at Newcastle upon Tyne. My father and mother had
eight children, of whom I was the sixth : and I was born on the
12th of June, 1802.
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HOUSE IN WHICH HARRIET MARTINEAU WAS BORN.

HARRIET MARTINEAU'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

——————

FIRST PERIOD.

TO EIGHT YEARS OLD.

————

SECTION I.

My first recollections are of some infantine impressions which
were in abeyance for a long course of years, and then revived in
an inexplicable way, — as by a flash of lightning over a far hori-
zon in the night. There is no doubt of the genuineness of the
remembrance, as the facts could not have been told me by any
one else. I remember standing on the threshold of a cottage,
holding fast by the doorpost, and putting my foot down, in re-
peated attempts to reach the ground. Having accomplished the
step, I toddled (I remember the uncertain feeling) to a tree before
the door, and tried to clasp and get round it; but the rough bark
hurt my hands. At night of the same day, in bed, I was dis-
concerted by the coarse feel of the sheets, — so much less smooth
and cold than those at home; and I was alarmed by the creak-
ing of the bedstead when I moved. It was a turn-up bedstead
in a cottage, or small farm-house at Carleton, where I was sent
for my health, being a delicat child.

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