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Paul Clifford — Volume 02 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 67 of 93 (72%)
assisted to ruin him; wishing no assistance in so pleasing an occupation,
he overturned her (perhaps not on purpose), in a new sort of carriage
which he was learning to drive, and the good lady was killed on the spot.
She left the fine gentleman two sons,--Joseph Brandon, the present
thane,--and a brother some years younger. The elder, being of a fitting
age, was sent to school, and somewhat escaped the contagion of the
paternal mansion. But the younger Brandon, having only reached his fifth
year at the time of his mother's decease, was retained at home. Whether
he was handsome or clever or impertinent, or like his father about the
eyes (that greatest of all merits), we know not; but the widower became
so fond of him that it was at a late period and with great reluctance
that he finally intrusted him to the providence of a school.

Among harlots and gamblers and lords and sharpers, and gentlemen of the
guards, together with their frequent accompaniments,--guards of the
gentlemen, namely, bailiffs,--William Brandon passed the first stage of
his boyhood. He was about thirteen when he was sent to school; and being
a boy of remarkable talents, he recovered lost time so well that when at
the age of nineteen he adjourned to the University, he had scarcely
resided there a single term before he had borne off two of the highest
prizes awarded to academical merit. From the University he departed on
the "grand tour," at that time thought so necessary to complete the
gentleman; he went in company with a young nobleman, whose friendship he
had won at the University, stayed abroad more than two years, and on his
return he settled down to the profession of the law.

Meanwhile his father died, and his fortune, as a younger brother, being
literally next to nothing, and the family estate (for his brother was not
unwilling to assist him) being terribly involved, it was believed that he
struggled for some years with very embarrassed and penurious
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