a man as my grandsire; he gave away two thousand
pounds in charities, and in the joy of his heart made a speech at the
next quarter sessions; the rest of his life was spent in ease,
tranquillity, and rural dignity; he died of apoplexy on the day that my
father became of age; perhaps it would be difficult to mention a man who
in all respects was so fortunate as my grandfather; his death was sudden,
it is true, but I am not one of those who pray to be delivered from a
sudden death.

"I should not call my father a fortunate man; it is true that he had the
advantage of a first-rate education; that he made the grand tour with a
private tutor, as was the fashion at that time; that he came to a
splendid fortune on the very day that he came of age; that for many years
he tasted all the diversions of the capital; that, at last determined to
settle, he married the sister of a baronet, an amiable and accomplished
lady, with a large fortune; that he had the best stud of hunters in the
county, on which, during the season, he followed the fox gallantly; had
he been a fortunate man he would never have cursed his fate, as he was
frequently known to do; ten months after his marriage his horse fell upon
him, and so injured him, that he expired in a few days in great agony.
My grandfather was, indeed, a fortunate man; when he died he was followed
to the grave by the tears of the poor--my father was not.

"Two remarkable circumstances are connected with my birth--I am a
posthumous child, and came into the world some weeks before the usual
time, the shock which my mother experienced at my father's death having
brought on the pangs of premature labour; both my mother's life and my
own were at first despaired of; we both, however, survived the crisis.
My mother loved me with the most passionate fondness, and I was brought
up in this house under her own eye--I was never sent to school.

"I have already told you that mine is not a tale of adventure; my life
has not been one of action, but of wild imaginings and strange
sensations; I was born with excessive sensibility, and that has been my
bane. I have not been a fortunate man.

"No one is fortunate unless he is happy, and it is impossible for a being
constructed like myself to be happy for an hour, or even enjoy peace and
tranquillity; most of our pleasures and pains are the effects of
imagination, and wherever the sensibility is great, the imagination is
great also. No sooner has my ima