The Diary of a Girl in France in 1821

The child who wrote this quaintly-illustrated diary, eighty-three years ago, was the second daughter of William Browne, Esq., of Tallentire Hall, in the County of Cumberland. She was born there, February 15, 1807.
Descended, on her father's side, from a race of sturdy Cumberland yeomen, and on her mother's from the Royal Stuarts and Plantagenets, she grew up, as might be expected from this childish production, an original and uncommon woman.
A keen naturalist and observer of nature, at a time when such pursuits were unusual, she delighted in long solitary country rambles round her beautiful home: an old border watch-tower, dating from 1280 a. d., in full view of the Solway to the north, and of [Pg vi]Skiddaw and the Cumbrian mountains to the south.