the voyage. His extraction was obscure; but circumstances brought him early

into public notice, and his small paternal property was soon dissipated in

the splendid scene of fashion and luxury in which he was an actor. During

the short years of thoughtless youth, he was adored by the high-bred

triflers of the day, nor least by the youthful sovereign, who escaped from

the intrigues of party, and the arduous duties of kingly business, to find

never-failing amusement and exhilaration of spirit in his society. My

father's impulses, never under his own controul, perpetually led him into

difficulties from which his ingenuity alone could extricate him; and the

accumulating pile of debts of honour and of trade, which would have bent to

earth any other, was supported by him with a light spirit and tameless

hilarity; while his company was so necessary at the tables and assemblies

of the rich, that his derelictions were considered venial, and he himself

received with intoxicating flattery.

This kind of popularity, like every other, is evanescent: and the

difficulties of every kind with which he had to contend, increased in a

frightful ratio compared with his small means of extricating himself. At

such times the king, in his enthusiasm for him, would come to his relief,

and then kindly take his friend to task; my father gave the best promises

for amendment, but his social disposition, his craving for the usual diet

of admiration, and more than all, the fiend of gambling, which fully

possessed him, made his good resolutions transient, his promises vain. With

the quick sensibility peculiar to his temperament, he perceived his power

in the brilliant circle to be on the wane. The king married; and the

haughty princess of Austria, who became, as queen of England, the head of

The Last Man