Perth.
_Large Families_ (Vol. v., pp. 204. 304.).--To the instances of
unusually large numbers of children by one mother given in "N. & Q." may
be added that of a Lady Elphinstone, who is said, by tradition, to have
had no less than thirty-six children, of whom twenty-seven were living
at one time.
There is a story told of this lady and her husband, Lord Elphinstone,
which seems to corroborate the tradition; it is, that they once asked a
new and somewhat bashful acquaintance to visit them, telling him that he
should meet no one but their family circle. Their guest arrived shortly
before dinner, and, being shown through the dining-hall on his way to
the drawing-room, was much disconcerted at seeing a long table laid for
about twenty people. On remonstrating with his host and hostess for
having taken him in, as he thought, he was quietly informed that he had
been told no more than the truth, for that their family party, when all
assembled, only fell short of _thirty_ by _one_.
I believe that John eighth Lord Elphinstone and his lady, a daughter of
the Earl of Lauderdale, who lived in the latter part of the seventeenth
and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, are the pair to whom this
story refers; and, though the Scotch peerages make no mention of any
such phenomenon in the Elphinstone family, yet I am strongly inclined,
from the goodness of the authority from which I derive the tradition, to
believe it to be true; the more so, as it is now acknowledged that the
Scotch peerages, not excepting Douglas's, which has hitherto been the
chief book of reference respecting the noble families of Scotland, are
so full of errors and omissions, that very little reliance can be placed
on them.
Can any of your readers inform me whether any documentary evidence
exists that a lady Elphinstone had this extraordinary number of
children?