A decayed gentleman, who lives most upon his own mirth and my
master's means, and much good do him with it. He does hold my
master up with his stories, and songs, and catches, and such tricks
and jigs, you would admire--he is with him now.

--_Jovial Crew_.


By no one has my return to the Hall been more heartily greeted than by
Mr. Simon Bracebridge, or Master Simon, as the Squire most commonly
calls him. I encountered him just as I entered the park, where he was
breaking a pointer, and he received me with all the hospitable
cordiality with which a man welcomes a friend to another one's house.
I have already introduced him to the reader as a brisk old
bachelor-looking little man; the wit and superannuated beau of a large
family connection, and the Squire's factotum. I found him, as usual,
full of bustle; with a thousand petty things to do, and persons to
attend to, and in chirping good-humour; for there are few happier
beings than a busy idler; that is to say, a man who is eternally busy
about nothing.

I visited him, the morning after my arrival, in his chamber, which is
in a remote corner of the mansion, as he says he likes to be to
himself, and out of the way. He has fitted it up in his own taste, so
that it is a perfect epitome of an old bachelor's notions of
convenience and arrangement. The furniture is made up of odd pieces
from all parts of the house, chosen on account of their suiting his
notions, or fitting some corner of his apartment; and he is very
eloquent in praise of an ancient elbow-chair, from which he takes