German baron: and perhaps with no less reason, being convinced that
Adam himself was his great progenitor. My mother, not having the
fear of her father before her eyes, forgetful of the family dignity,
disgraced herself, and contaminated the blood of her offspring, by
marrying a farmer's son. Had she married a gentleman, what that very
different being, which a gentleman doubtless must have generated,
might have been, is more than I, as I now am, can pretend to divine.
As it is, however low it may sink me in the reader's opinion, truth
obliges me to own, I am but of a mongrel breed.

The delinquency of my mother was aggravated by the daringness of her
disobedience; for the rector, having a foresight of what was likely to
happen, had laid his express command on her never to see Hugh Trevor,
my father, more, on the very night that she eloped. Add to which,
she had the example of an elder sister, to terrify her from such
dereliction of duty; who, having married a rake, had been left a
widow, poor, desolate, and helpless, and obliged to live an unhappy
dependent on her offended father. 'I'll please my eye though I break
my heart,' said my mother.

She kept her word. Young Hugh was an athletic, well proportioned,
handsome man; of a sanguine temper, prone to pleasure, a frequenter
of wakes and fairs, and much addicted to speculate; particularly in
cards, cocking, and horse-racing.

Discarded by the rector, who was obstinately irreconcileable,
my mother went with her husband to reside in the house of her
father-in-law. Folly visits all orders of men. Farmers, as well as
lords and rectors, can be proud of their families. The match was
considered as an acquisition of dignity to the house of Trevor; and