574 The Inconveniences of an Independence. [MAY, 



the country must be delightful ; but I could not enjoy it. The Parliament 

 dissolved, and thus ceased one great source of my amusement, or occupa- 

 tion rather, for I might be seen, as regular as a committee-man, passing 

 down Parliament-street ; by the porters I was taken for a member, and 

 by the gallery door-keeper, I suppose, for a reporter, as he always recog- 

 nized me, and I passed on without having occasion to exhibit my order for 

 admittance. It was my constant practice to read the various reports of the 

 evening's debate in the different newspapers, and I became a critical judge 

 of the merits of the reporters. Once a thought came across my mind to 

 take notes of the proceedings myself ; but thinking the difficulty of ac- 

 quiring short-hand would not be recompensed by the little additional 

 stimulus it occasioned, and stifling with a blush the thought of deriving* 

 emolument from the employment, I banished the consideration ; but was 

 not afterwards so constant in my attendance on the debates in Parliament. 

 With the close of the session, and the departure of the Court and principal 

 families from town, and the return of dust and the dog days, came my half- 

 banished tyrant Ennui ; and I remained in London with half-pay officers, 

 government clerks, and the whole fraternity of poor gentlemen, to contem- 

 plate the horror of my fate. 



It was at this period that I began an attack upon my native and 

 ingrafted pride. 1 had lived up to my income, and yet had only escaped 

 wearing a questionable coat, and a doubtful hat, although I had appeared 

 as a gentleman. True I had taken to dark-coloured gloves, always wore 

 boots of a morning and black for dress ; contracted per annum with my 

 hair-dresser and laundress ; confined myself to one glass of sherry ; affected 

 plainness of dress, and became neat ; and at five and twenty I looked, 

 moved, and dressed like a bachelor of five and thirty. In all this I never 

 descended below the real gentleman, either in my appearance or de- 

 portment. 



I never became what is technically called a " respectable man" 

 meaning any given individual who does not dress actually shabbily, or owe 

 his tradesman a bill. No ; I escaped that abomination of merchandize, 

 and though I paid my tradesmen regularly, never discovered any indications 

 of my being considered less than a gentleman. 



Hitherto the reader of this narrative has set me down for a proud, idle, 

 discontented man, who, from the mere circumstance of his having enough 

 to live upon, was miserable at not having more; and although that is in 

 one sense a just estimate of my condition, yet, when viewed in the light 

 in which I saw it, he will be more liberal if not sympathizing in his judg- 

 ment ; and when I relate the almost daily practical miseries I experienced, 

 and recount the privations I underwent, I think he will be induced to 

 feel with me that my little income was rather an aggravation than a 

 palliation of them, inasmuch as it prevented me from seeking means to 

 rid myself of them. I can give but a faint sketch of the mortifica- 

 tions and annoyances to which I was exposed ; one of the chief of which 

 was my total inability from want of sufficient means, to extend my circle 

 of acquaintance, which I found was already sufficiently numerous. In- 

 deed my continual struggles to avoid affronting my friends and escape the 

 imputation of meanness, were at the time torturing. No debtor ever shun- 

 ned a creditor, or thief dreaded an officer, more than I the meeting of an 

 acquaintance. I had recourse to affectation, and began to be absent, and to 

 appear a misanthrope. In short, I banished myself from the society of all but 



