They were
eminently hospitable and popular, till the father of this gentleman died
of an election. His lady went to the grave soon after him, and left the
heir, then only ten years old, to the care of his grandmother, who would
not suffer him to be controlled, because she could not bear to hear him
cry; and never sent him to school, because she was not able to live
without his company. She taught him however very early to inspect the
steward's accounts, to dog the butler from the cellar, and to catch the
servants at a junket; so that he was at the age of eighteen a complete
master of all the lower arts of domestick policy, had often on the road
detected combinations between the coachman and the ostler, and procured
the discharge of nineteen maids for illicit correspondence with
cottagers and charwomen.
By the opportunities of parsimony which minority affords, and which the
probity of his guardians had diligently improved, a very large sum of
money was accumulated, and he found himself, when he took his affairs
into his own hands, the richest man in the county. It has been long the
custom of this family to celebrate the heir's completion of his
twenty-first year, by an entertainment, at which the house is thrown
open to all that are inclined to enter it, and the whole province flocks
together as to a general festivity.
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