1830.] Recollections of a Valetudinarian. 27 



most fractious, spoiled child, that ever existed ; a misery to myself and 

 every body about me. 



My grandfather, however, could ROC bear me out of his sight, and was 

 with great difficulty prevailed on to send me to a school, whose chief 

 recommendation was its vicinity to our house, where I was reported to 

 have made wonderful progress. Whether that was really the case, or 

 whether my grandfather's dinners were the best in the neighbourhood, 

 and my praises the readiest way to get invited to them, I don't know ; 

 but every body said I was a "genius," and had great natural talents j the 

 surest way to prevent a child's getting any acquired ones. I had the 

 misfortune to be told on all occasions that I was very clever ; I wrote a 

 copy of verses on arithmetic at nine years old, and composed a tragedy 

 on a Spanish subject before I was eleven. The verses are still extant : 

 all I remember of the tragedy is that two assassins were the chief cha- 

 racters, and that one of these was called Pedro. The realities of life 

 have long since cured me of poetry : when I shall leave off prose I have 

 not yet determined. 



These ill-judged praises, of course, did not tend to make me either more 

 amiable or agreeable, although my too partial relations considered me 

 perfection j they made me an idol, and fancied me a prodigy, and I was 

 very well contented to believe myself both. This mutual mistake lasted 

 until I went to a public school, where the usual quantity of the dead lan- 

 guages was flogged into me, until I provoked my lately over-indulgent 

 friends by different misdemeanours, which they punished more in pro- 

 portion to their own disappointment than my demerits. It is very hard 

 that those who first spoil children should be the persons to visit them 

 with too much severity for faults which they themselves originally caused, 

 and which more judicious treatment on their parts might have prevented. 

 Such was my fate, however j the sins of the child were visited on the 

 man, and I was returned upon my father's hands. 



The crimes of a schoolboy of thirteen years old .ought hardly to be 

 considered capital, and punished through the whole of a long life ; but 

 the consequences of my grandfather's anger entirely altered my destina- 

 tion, and even to this moment I feel the effects of his resentment. My 

 father, then a captain in the navy, was the younger son of a country gen- 

 tleman of an old and highly respectable family in the county of ; 



but economy was not the virtue for which they were most particularly 

 distinguished, and he was considerably disappointed at my return. He 

 could do little for me out of his own profession, in which he was univer- 

 sally beloved and respected. But a boy educated for India, as I had 

 been, brought up in every luxury, accustomed to have every want anti- 

 cipated, and spoiled by my grandfather, was not exactly fitted for his 

 majesty's navy. My grandfather on the father's side had nearly dissi- 

 pated all the family property that was not entailed on his eldest son, who 

 had a large family of his own ; he was a sort of country Heliogabalus, 

 who would have melted down a bullock to make gravy for a partridge. 

 He was so curious in his sauces, and so " recherche" in matters of eat- 

 ing, that he was celebrated among his contemporaries for having de- 

 voured the George or Fountain inn at Portsmouth (I forget which) in 



three meals, and also for having sold an estate in shire, on which 



the purchaser cut down sufficient timber to repay himself the principal 

 in six months. I am told this worthy gentleman once drove his coach 

 and four. I saw him reduced to a one horse chaise before he died ; and 



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