PUBLIC CHARACTERS of his own times, and which will doubtless secure to him an honourable fame, when many of the more dazzling meteors of transient notoriety shall long have ceased to glimmer. "Of my family (says Mr. Gifford) I know but little, and that little is not very precise. My great-grandfather, (the most remote of it, that I ever recollect to have heard mentioned) possessed considerable property at Halsworthy, a parish in the neighbourhood of Ashburton; but whether acquired or inherited, I never thought of asking, and do not know.* He was probably a native of Devonshire, for there he spent the last years of his life; spent them too, in some sort of consideration, for Mr. T. (a very respectable surgeon of Ashburton) loved to repeat to me, when I first grew into notice, that he had frequently hunted with his hounds. My grandfather was on ill terms with him: I believe, not without sufficient reason, for he was extravagant and dissipated. My father never mentioned his name, but my mother would sometimes tell me that he had ruined the family. That he spent much, I know; but I am inclined to think that his unduti ful conduct occasioned my great-grandfather to bequeath a part of his property from him. My father, I fear, revenged in some measure the cause of my great-grandfather. He was, as I have I have, however, some faint notion of hearing my mother say, that he, or his father, had been a China merchant, in London By China merchant I always understood, and so perhaps did she, a dealer in China-ware. 1802-3. X heard 66 heard my mother young man, who could be kept to nothing." He was sent to the grammar-school at Exeter; from which he made his escape, and entered on board a man of war. He was soon reclaimed from his situation by my grandfather, and left his school a second time, to wander in some vagabond society. He was now probably given up, for he was, on his return from this notable adventure, reduced to article himself to a plumber and glazier, with whom he luckily staid long enough to learn the business. I suppose his father was now dead, for he became possessed of two small estates, married my mother, (the daughter of a carpenter at Ashburton,) and thought himself rich enough to set up for himself; which he did with some credit, at South Molton. Why he chose to fix there, I never inquired; but I learned from my mother, that after a residence of four or five years he was again thoughtless enough to engage in a dangerous frolic, which drove him once more to sea. This was an attempt to excite a riot in a Methodist chapel; for which his companions were prosecuted, and he fled, as I have mentioned. My father was a good seaman, and was soon made second in command in the Lyon, a large armed transport in the service of government: while my mother (then with child of me) returned to her native place, Ashburton, where I was born, in April 1757. He had gone with Bamfylde Moore Carew, then an old man. + Her maiden name was Elizabeth Cain. My father's christian name was Edward. The The resources of my mother were very scanty. They arose from the rent of three or four small fields, which yet remained unsold. With these, however, she did what she could for me; and as soon as I was old enough to be trusted out of her sight, sent me to a school-mistress of the name of Parret, from whom I learned in due time to read. I cannot boast much of my acquisitions at this school; they consisted merely of the contents of the " Child's Spelling Book :" but from my mother, who had stored up the literature of a country town, which, about half a century ago, amounted to little more than what was disseminated by itinerant ballad-singers, or rather, readers, I had acquired much curious knowledge of Catskin, and the Golden Bull, and the Bloody Gardener, and many other histories equally instructive and amusing. My father returned from sea in 1764. He had been at the siege of the Havannah; and though he received more than a hundred pounds for prizemoney, and his wages were considerable; yet, as he had not acquired any strict habits of economy, he brought home but a trifling sum. The little property yet left was therefore turned into money; a trifle more was got by agreeing to renounce all future pretensions to an estate at Totness; and with this my father set up a second time as a glazier and housepainter. I was now about eight years old, and was *This was a lot of small houses, which had been thoughtlessly suffered to fall into decay, and of which the rents had been solong unclaimed, that they could not now be recovered, unless by an expensive litigation. put to the free-school (kept by Hugh Smerdon) to learn to read and write, and cypher. Here I continued about three years, making a most wretched progress, when my father fell sick and died. He had not acquired wisdom from his misfortunes, but continued wasting his time in unprofitable pursuits, to the great detriment of his business. He loved drink for the sake of society, and to this love he fell a martyr; dying of a decayed and ruined constitution before he was forty. The town's people thought him a shrewd and sensible man, and regretted his death. As for me I never greatly loved him; I had not grown up with him; and he was too prone to repulse my little advances to familiarity, with coldnes, or anger. He had certainly some reason to be displeased with me, for I learned little at school, and nothing at home, though he would now and then attempt to give me some insight into the business. As impressions of any kind are not very strong at the age of eleven or twelve, I did not long feel his loss; nor was it a subject of much sorrow to me; that my mother was doubtful of her ability to continue me at school, though I had by this time acquired a love for reading. I never knew in what circumstances my mother was left most probably they were inadequate to her support, without some kind of exertion, especially as she was now burthened with a second child about six or eight months old. Unfortunately she determined to prosecute my father's business; for which purpose she engaged a couple of journeymen, who, finding fding her ignorant of every part of it, wasted her property, and embezzled her money. What the consequence of this double fraud would have been, there was no opportunity of knowing, as, in somewhat less than a twelvemonth, my poor mother followed my father to the grave. She was an excellent woman, bore my father's infirmities with patience and good humour, loved her children dearly, and died at last exhausted with anxiety and grief more on their account than on her own. I was not quite thirteen when this happened; my little brother was hardly two; and we had not a relation nor a friend in the world. Every thing that was left was seized by a person of the name of C———, for money advanced to my mother. It may be supposed that I could not dispute the justice of his claims; and as no one else interfered, he was suffered to do as he liked. My little brother was sent to the alms-house, whither his nurse followed him out of pure affection; and I was taken to the house of the person I have just mentioned, who was also my godfather. Respect for the opinion of the town, (which, whether correct or not, was, that he had repaid himself by the sale of my mother's effects) induced him to send me again to school, where I was more diligent than before, and more successful. I grew fond of arithmetic, and my master began to distinguish me: but these golden days were over in less than three months. Csickened at the expense; and, as the people were now indifferent to my fate, he looked round for an opportunity of ridding himself of a useless charge. He |