CHAPTER X 



REVERSE OF FORTUNE 



A Wet Season — Beneficial Farming — A Eacing Stud — A Commissary 

 — Petworth — Duke of Somerset — Seymour the Painter — Scene 

 in a Brook — An Alai'ming Purchase — Contagion — Pathology — 

 Naval Captain — Domestic Calamity — Alterations and Improve- 

 ments — An Unblushing Villain — Driving Clubs — A Saturnalia — 

 Comparison — An Attraction — A Final Eesolution. 



I WOULD willingly draw a veil over this part of my 

 history, for it brings to my memory many circumstances 

 of a sorrowful nature, as well as an accumulation of 

 losses of no ordinary occurrence, though at the risk of 

 being accused of possessing a mock or morbid sensibility ; 

 but as it is necessary to connect my former life with the 

 character I have assumed in the title-page, I shall 

 proceed, however reluctantly, to give it a place in this 

 narrative. 



Some of my readers will be able to call to mind the 

 disastrous year of 1816, more particularly those engaged 

 in agricultural pursuits. This, it may be remembered, 

 was a very wet season, so much so, that in some parts of 

 the country the harvest was not gathered in til] October 

 or November, and I have since heard from undoubted 

 authority that beans were standing in the field at 

 Christmas. 



