12 FAMILY PRETENSIONS. 



had obtained a position in one of the 

 southern counties that his son has long con- 

 templated with unavailing regret, where he, 

 for a time, exercised all the functions, and 

 enjoyed all the social benefits, belonging to 

 the life of a country gentleman hospitably 

 entertaining a large circle of friends, and, 

 by his constant and liberal employment of 

 the poor, commanding their good word and 

 esteem. 



Ingratitude, it is said, is inherent in the 

 heart of man ; but when the remains of my 

 father were brought a long distance to be 

 interred in a vault he had built years before 

 for his remains and those of his family, 

 the attendance of the aged villagers, their 

 expressions of respectful remembrance, with 

 their recapitulation of the good he had doiie 

 when living among them, might, I think, 

 be quoted as an exception. 



My mother's patronymic, although her- 

 self of humble birth, was the same as that of 

 a family who had been ennobled in the time 



