THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



of Anistcad, but of very different habits and pursuits. In the 

 first place he was not a sportsman ; and this for reasons inde- 

 pendent of a natural disinclination for all sports of the field. 

 His immense size would have been an obstacle to it, for he 

 might have played Falstafi' without stuffino-. Again, his health 

 was not good. He had incurred some of the penalties attend- 

 ant on idleness and high feeding ; but he equalled his brother 

 in kindheartedness and good feeling, and exceeded him in 

 accomplishments, the result of the life he had led. His 

 history is this : — Having had an ample fortune left him when 

 a child, by a person to whom he was but distantly related, he 

 entered, with his brother, as a gentleman commoner of Christ 

 Church, Oxford, where he took a very high degree. He then 

 became a member of the Inner Temple, not with the view of 

 making a profession of the law, but to qualify himself for a 

 member of the senate, which it was his ambition to become. 

 Nor was he disappointed. He sat in two short Parliaments, 

 during which he made three speeches, each affording the 

 promise of brighter days to come. They were not only occa- 

 sionally adorned by classic flowers, culled from the poets 

 and historians of the Augustan age, but they were also remark- 

 able for clear views of their subjects, and a business-like 

 manner of debating them. The natural indolence of his 

 disposition, however, obtained the mastery over his inclinations ; 

 his seat in the house was not sought for a third time ; he 

 became a mere votary of ease and pleasure — in fact, what is 

 called a regular London man ; thinking with Sir Fopling 

 Flutter, in the play, that ' all beyond Hyde Park Corner is a 

 desert.' At all events, the simple and humble pleasures which 

 a country life affords would have been to him something more 

 than insipid. Nevertheless, the two brothers were greatly 

 attached to each other ; were inseparable when in London 

 together ; corresponded regularly when at a distance ; and, 

 perhaps once in three years, the ci-devant Templar and ex- 

 member of the senate would quit the gay scenes of London and 

 Bath to pass a few weeks at the Abbey. 



It has already been stated that the family of Mr. Raby 

 consisted of four — two sons and two daughters — all of whom 

 lived to attain their majority : Francis, the second son, however, 

 is the hero of this story, and here his history begins : — 



He was born in the year 1776, and being the issue of sound 



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