Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 1, 2025
I never shall forget the solemn remonstrances of our old square-toes of a rector at Hackton, who made one or two vain attempts to teach little Bryan Latin, and with whose innumerable children I sometimes allowed the boy to associate.
Round Hackton village the scene of welcome was particularly gay: a band of music had been brought from Plymouth, and arches and flags had been raised, especially before the attorney's and the doctor's houses, who were both in the employ of the family.
When this Hackton company was raised, my stepson, who was now sixteen years of age, was most eager to be allowed to join it, and I would have gladly consented to have been rid of the young man; but his guardian, Lord Tiptoff, who thwarted me in everything, refused his permission, and the lad's military inclinations were balked.
For Bryan I now got a young gentleman from Oxford, the Rev. Edmund Lavender, who was commissioned to teach him Latin, when the boy was in the humour, and to ground him in history, grammar, and the other qualifications of a gentleman. Lavender was a precious addition to our society at Hackton. He was the means of making a deal of fun there.
He was the very portrait of some of the dark cavaliers of the Lyndon race, whose pictures hung in the gallery at Hackton: where the lad was fond of spending the chief part of his time, occupied with the musty old books which he took out of the library, and which I hate to see a young man of spirit poring over.
Every post which brought us any account of Rigby's increasing illness, was the sure occasion of a dinner from me; so much so, that my friends of the hunt used to laugh and say, 'Rigby's worse; there's a corporation dinner at Hackton. It was in 1776, when the American war broke out, that I came into Parliament.
But, in truth, I had small inducements to remain in it after having tasted of the genteeler and more complete pleasures of English and Continental life; and we passed our summers at Buxton, Bath, and Harrogate, while Hackton Castle was being beautified in the elegant manner already described by me, and the season at our mansion in Berkeley Square.
And when my troubles began at Hackton, and I determined on the only chance left, viz. to retire to Ireland and retrench, assigning over the best part of my income to the creditors until their demands were met, my Lady was quite cheerful at the idea of going, and said, if we would be quiet, she had no doubt all would be well; indeed, was glad to undergo the comparative poverty in which we must now live for the sake of the retirement and the chance of domestic quiet which she hoped to enjoy.
I could scarce have a friend to Hackton, but they counted the bottles drunk at my table. They ferreted out my dealings with my lawyers and agents. If a creditor was unpaid, every item of his bill was known at Tiptoff Hall; if I looked at a farmer's daughter, it was said I had ruined her.
A flood of calumny was let loose upon me, in which any man of less spirit would have gone down. But though I met my accusers boldly, though I lavished sums of money in the election, though I flung open Hackton Hall and kept champagne and Burgundy running there, and at all my inns in the town, as commonly as water, the election went against me.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking