me with
her vivacity when I was gay, the other with her sense when I was serious. But
these qualities were never carried to excess in either, and I have often seen
them exchange characters for a whole day together. A suit of mourning has
transformed my coquet into a prude, and a new set of ribbands has given her
younger sister more than natural vivacity. My eldest son George was bred at
Oxford, as I intended him for one of the learned professions. My second boy
Moses, whom I designed for business, received a sort of a miscellaneous
education at home. But it is needless to attempt describing the particular
characters of young people that had seen but very little of the world. In short,
a family likeness prevailed through all, and properly speaking, they had but one
character, that of being all equally generous, credulous, simple, and
inoffensive.
 

                                   Chap. II.

Family misfortunes. The loss of fortune only serves to encrease the pride of the
worthy.
 
The temporal concerns of our family were chiefly committed to my wife's
management, as to the spiritual I took them entirely under my own direction. The
profits of my living, which amounted to but thirty-five pounds a year, I made
over to the orphans and widows of the clergy of our diocese; for having a
sufficient fortune of my own, I was careless of temporalities, and felt a secret
pleasure in doing my duty without reward. I also set a resolution of keeping no
curate, and of being acquainted with every man in the parish, exhorting the
married men to temperance and the bachelors to matrimony; so that in a few years
it was a common saying, that there were three strange wants at Wakefield, a
parson wanting pride, young men wanting wives, and ale-houses wanting customers.
    Matrimony was always one of my favourite topics, and I wrote several sermons
to prove its happiness: but there was a peculiar tenet which I made a point of
supporting; for I maintained with Whiston, that it was unlawful for a priest of
the church of England, after the death of his first wife, to take a second, or
to express it in one word, I valued myself upon being a strict monogamist.
    I was early innitiated into this important dispute, on which so many
laborious volumes have been written. I published some tracts upon the subject
myself, which, as they never sold, I have the consolation of thinking are read
only by the happy Few. Some of my friends called this my weak side; but alas!
they had not like me made