 pursuit of luxury to come. To himself indeed the loss was but small; while his substance was moldering away by degrees, its

value was annihilated in his expectations of the future; and he died amidst the horrors of a prison, smiling at the prospect of ideal wealth, and visionary grandeur.
But with his family it was otherwise: his wife, who had often vainly endeavoured to prevent, by her advice, the destructive schemes of her husband, at last tamely yielded to her fate, and died soon after him of a broken heart, leaving an only son, the Bolton who is now introduced into my story.
The distresses of his father had been always ridiculed by sir Thomas Sindall, as proceeding from a degree of whim and madness, which it would have been a weakness to pity; his aunt, Mrs. Selwyn, joined in the sentiment; perhaps it was really her own; but at any rate she was apt to agree in opinion with her nephew sir Thomas, and never had much regard for her sister Bolton, for some reasons no less just than common: in the first place her sister was handsomer than she; secondly, she was sooner married; and thirdly, she had been blest with this promising boy, while Mrs. Selwyn became a widow, without having had a child. There appeared then but little prospect of protection to poor Bolton from this quarter; but, as he had no other relation in any degree of propinquity, a regard to decency prompted the baronet to admit the boy into his house.
His situation indeed was none of the most agreeable; but the happy dispositions which nature had given him, suited themselves to the harshness of his fortune; and in whatever society he was placed, he found himself surrounded with friends: there was not a servant in the house, who would not risk the displeasure of their master or Mrs. Selwyn, to do some forbidden act of kindness to their little favourite Harry Bolton.
Sir Thomas himself, from some concurring accidents, had his notice attracted by the good qualities of the boy; his indifference was conquered by degrees, and at last he began to take upon himself the charge of rea•ing him to manhood. There wanted only this to fix his attachment: benefits to those, whom we set apart for our own management and assistance, have something so particular in their nature, that there is scarce a selfish passion which their exercise does not gratify. Yet I mean not to rob Sindall of the honour of his beneficence; it shall no more want my praise, than it did the gratitude of Bolton.


BOLTON
