THE SUICIDE.
My father was a Shropshire country gentle-
man, who, to an ancient descent and narrow in-
come, added the blessing of a family of thirteen
children. My mother having died in giving
birth to the thirteenth of us, he married a second
wife, whose single misfortune it was, as she used
feelingly to lament, to have no offspring. My
father, though a tender husband, bore this dis-
pensation without repining; reconciled, no doubt,
in some degree to it, by the daily cheering sight
of thirteen rosy boys and girls, of all ages and
sizes, seated at six o’clock in full health, appe-
tite, and activity, at the long mahogany dining-
table. This consoling spectacle was strongly
backed by the butcher's weekly bills, which re-
minded our parent punctually every Saturday
morning, that Heaven had already done much
for him, in respect of progeny, and sent him to
church on Sunday perfectly resigned to the
prospect of not having his troubles increased by
his second lady. These considerations operating
on a naturally contented mind, indeed so weigh-
ed with my father, that instead of sharing in my
step-mother’s distress at having no children, he
appeared solicitous about nothing so much as
how to dispose of that ample stock which he had
been blessed with already. It happened, unfor-
tunately, to our house, as to many other good
houses, that while our honours had increased
with time, our fortunes had waned with it; years,-
which had steadily added to the antiquity of our
name, had as regularly abstracted from the rents
and profits of the domain; the genealogical tree
shot its routs deep, and spread its branches far
and wide, but the oaks were felled, and there
was as much parchment on the land as would
have sufficed for all the pedigrees of the Welch
principality. When my father came into the
possession of the estate, a prudent wife and gen-
teel economy just enabled him to support the
dignity of —— Place; he kept fewer servants,
fewer horses, saw less company, than his father
before him, but still the establishment was on a
creditable and comfortable footing. As my mo-
ther, however, successively blest him year after
year with some one of us, matters began to wear
another aspect; it became necessary to pare
things closer and closer, and by the time that I,
the seventh child and fourth son, had arrived at
my full appetite, it was necessary to practice the
most rigid economy, in order to keep half an ox
on our table for our daily meal, and two or three
clowns in livery behind our chairs, to change
our plates and fill our glasses. Had our wants
stopped here all would have been comparatively
well, but being gentlemen of name in the county,
it was essentially necessary to us that we should
do as others of our own rank did; we were all
accordingly for hunting, racing, attending balls,
music méetings, &c.,and miserably was my poor
father importuned to provide the means of our
various indispensable amusements. In this state
of things, it was not surprising that his most
earnest wish was to see us “strike root into the
pockets of the people” in some way. But he was
a Whig, unfortunately, and could therefore do
no more than put us in the right path against a
favourable turn in public affairs; which, in the
vulgar phraseology is the turn out of the opposite
party, and the turnin of one’s own. My eldest
brother, John, took orders that he might be
ready for a living; the second, Charles, got,
through the friendly interest of our Tory neigh-
bour, Sir Marmaduke Boroughly, an ensigncy
in the 60th foot; James went into the navy with
a view to a ship when our friends should come
in, and, poor fellow, he is at this day a midship-
man of twelve years’ standing. Unluckily, I
found, when my time arrived, that all the best
things were disposed of. The Whig bishopric in
expectancy, the staff appointment, the ship, were
all gone, anticipated by my brothers; and now
began my troubles, and the vexatious affair which
led to the remarkable incident that is the main
subject of this paper. One of my father’s earli-
est and fastest friends was Mr. W——, an emi-
nent London solicitor. Business brought this
worthy man to our part of the country just at the
time that the peace had thrown my brother
Charles back on my father’s hands a half-pay
ensign, and also my brother James a no-pay
midshipman, and that my brother John had re-
turned from college to take up hjs abode in the
paternal mansion till a stall should be opened to
him by a Whig administration. At this happy
moment of reunion, Mr. W became our
guest, and professionally acquainted as he was
with my father’s affairs, the sizlt of his board,
so graced with weli-grown sons from barrack,
sea, and college—not to mention nine daughters,
whose pink sashes alone must have required half
a mile of riband—filled him with a friendly con-
cern. My three brothers Aad their professions;
[ alone was unprovided for, and there was a so-
briety in my air which found favour in the eyes
of our guest. The truth is, that I was naturally
a romantic melancholy lad, and at this particular
period a little affair of sentiment had deepened
this complexion to a very respectable seriousness
of deportment. So favourable was the impres-
sion I produced on Mr. W——, that a few days
after he had left us for London, a letter arrived
from him containing an offer to my father,
couched in the handsomest terms, to take me
into his house as an articled clerk without the
usual premium; and concluding with an intima-
tion that in good time he would take me also
into his firm. My father considered my fortune
as made, but there was a sound in the word clerk
that did not please me; it seemed to confound
me with excisemen’s clerks, lawyer's clerks,
and all the other clerks that I could think of in
the town of D. At all events, thought I,
Louisa Daventry must be consulted before I ac-
