[ 572 ] [MAY, 



THE INCONVENIENCES OF AN INDEPENDENCE. 



I COMMENCE my auto-biography by stating that I am a younger 

 son, though of sufficient age to be set down for a bachelor. My father, 

 a country gentleman, knowing the miseries that attend " younger sons" 

 without an adequate provision or a lucrative profession, left each of his 

 six youngest, annuities of two-hundred a year, charged on the paternal 

 estate, which the eldest now inherits. Two of my brothers are mar- 

 ried the heir, of course, being one ; who has issue two boys, as if one 

 were not sufficient to extinguish, beyond all chance of rekindling, the 

 expiring snuff of hope to possess the family estate, that flickered in my 

 bosom, only to shew the drear darkness of despair that reigned there. 



My father was the only child of an only child, consequently I have 

 no old bachelor-uncle whose whims I could study, and whose estate I 

 might thereby inherit ; nor do I own any of those relations called maiden 

 aunts, with snug jointures accumulating at interest, whose parsimony I 

 might bless (when I did not share her denials) as the earnest of amassed 

 wealth that I might one day call my own. 



I support myself in the absence of all these inlets of fortune, by the 

 reflection that I possess none of those inexplicably-intricate relationships 

 called cousins, whose number may be calculated by geometrical progres- 

 sion from a married uncle or aunt, and who increase in time as a grain of 

 wheat in the ground. I have no cousin. Yes ! this is one of the few 

 consolations that mitigates the miseries of two hundred a year. 



But I am digressing. My father was a member for the county, and 

 farmed a part of his estate sufficient to occupy his time and that of one or 

 other of his sons un -profession ed. Although an oppositionist in his prin- 

 ciples, as appeared by his votes in the House, for he was no speaker, he 

 spurned the idea of bringing up his sons to anything but a profession. He 

 was careful to give us the needful advantage of a University education, 

 and to afford us the means of acquiring the personal accomplishments 

 which are so essential in the eyes of the world. He was likewise most 

 earnest in his exhortations that we should all acquire, what he called, " the 

 spirit and manners of a gentleman born and bred" to two hundred a 

 year, I added, mentally : for I must do him the justice to acknowledge, 

 that he had prepared us for our future destiny by announcing his deter- 

 mination, and thus preventing us from indulging either in desponding 

 anticipations or high expectations. 



At his death, I inherited, in common with my brothers, a thousand 

 pounds in cash, and the aforesaid annuity of two hundred a year. After a 

 decent time had elapsed we all quitted the family mansion in various 

 directions to enjoy the goods of fortune. I came immediately to London, 

 and after tasting the round of its pleasures set off for the continent, where 

 I travelled for several months, and, according to the usual custom that 

 exemplifies the vulgar proverb of " putting the cart before the horse," 

 I returned to make the tour of my own country. I had by this time 

 diminished, or rather consumed almost the whole of my ready cash, and 

 therefore deemed it prudent to look out for a home, which I resolved to 

 seek for in the great metropolis. To make " a home" for myself was no 

 easy matter, so I took up my abode at an hotel while I should be making 

 up my mind upon this important point. Ideas of matrimony filled my 

 brain for awhile, but I was in that "bachelor's home," a London hotel, and 

 they quickly dispersed at the thought of two hundred a year. 



