, my children, are not ours, and I thought it not
strange that Mr. Carvel should delight in a good main between two cocks,
or a bull-baiting, or a breaking of heads at the Chestertown fair, where
he went to show his cattle and fling a guinea into the ring for the
winner.

But it must not be thought that Lionel Carvel, your ancestor, was wholly
unlettered because he was a sportsman, though it must be confessed that
books occupied him only when the weather compelled, or when on his back
with the gout. At times he would fain have me read to him as he lay
in his great four-post bed with the flowered counterpane, from the
Spectator, stopping me now and anon at some awakened memory of his
youth. He never forgave Mr. Addison for killing stout, old Sir Roger de
Coverley, and would never listen to the butler's account of his death.
Mr. Carvel, too, had walked in Gray's Inn Gardens and met adventure at
Fox Hall, and seen the great Marlborough himself. He had a fondness
for Mr. Congreve's Comedies, many of which he had seen acted; and was
partial to Mr. Gay's Trivia, which brought him many a recollection. He
would also listen to Pope. But of the more modern poetry I think Mr.
Gray's Elegy pleased him best. He would laugh over Swift's gall and
wormwood, and would never be brought by my mother to acknowledge the
defects in the Dean's character. Why? He had once met the Dean in a
London drawing-room, when my grandfather was a young spark at Christ
Church, Oxford. He never tired of relating that interview. The hostess
was a very great lady indeed, and actually stood waiting for a word with
his Reverence, whose whim it was rather to talk to the young provincial.
He was a forbidding figure, in his black gown and periwig, so my
grandfather said, with a piercing blue eye and shaggy brow. He made the
mighty to come to him, while young Carvel stood between laughter and
fear of the great lady's displeasure.

"I knew of your father," said the Dean, "before he went to the colonies.
He had done better at home, sir. He was a man of parts."

"He has done indifferently well in Maryland, sir," said Mr. Carvel,
making his bow.

"He hath gained wealth, forsooth," says the Dean, wrathfully, "and might
have had both wealth and fame had his love for King James not turned
his head. I have heard much of the colonies, and have read that doggerel
'Sot Weed Factor' which tells of the gluttonous life of ease you lead in
your own province. You can have no