Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph / Extracted from her own Journal, and now first published

by Frances Chamberlaine Sheridan

My curiosity was excited by her manner. I desired her to sit down, and relate to me the particulars of her story.

She obeyed with a sensible politeness that pleased me.

About twelve years ago, said she, my father had a little cure in Berkshire; he was reckoned a fine preacher and a very great scholar, and what was more than either, one of the best of men. In the parish to which my father belonged, lived a gentleman of a very great estate, his name was Ware; he was himself a very worthy man, and had so high an opinion of my father, that he pitched upon him to go abroad in quality of governor to his only son, then a youth of about nineteen. As my father had travelled in the same capacity once before, he was very well qualified for the employment; and had no objection to the acceptance of it but his leaving my mother, of whom he was very fond, and me his only child, then scarcely more than an infant. The elder Mr Ware assured him he would be a friend and guardian to us both (and so he was) and that he would, in his absence, allow us double the income which my father received from his cure.

This, together with the appointment, which he was to receive as his son’s governor was too handsome an offer to be refused, especially as the gentleman promised he should never want a patron in him while he lived; and every body knew he had interest enough to make this promise of consequence. My father was then past fifty, but as he was of a very healthy strong constitution, he did not think it too late to undertake, for the good of his family, what he said was a very troublesome task.

I could not help interrupting the young gentlewoman to ask her how it came to pass that her father, such a man as she represented him to be, was no better provided for at this time of life, especially as she said he had before been intrusted with the care of a pupil, whom I presumed to be a person of fortune, as scarce any others are sent to travel.

She said, he had a small patrimony of his own, and that his original design was to study physic; but being persuaded by the love he bore a young gentleman, to whom he was private tutor at the university, to go abroad with him, he had for some years, while they continued on their travels, been obliged to decline this study. When he had brought his pupil safe back to England, he intended to pursue it, and for this purpose was preparing to go to Leyden; but the gentleman, who really had an affection for him, declared he could not part with him; and that if he would consent to stay and take holy orders, he would get him a living which was in his father’s gift (a nobleman then alive,) as soon as it should become vacant, of which there was a good prospect, on account of the age of the incumbent; and that in the mean time he should live with him. As the young gentleman had been married immediately after his return from his travels to a lady of vast fortune, and was settled with a family of his own about him, my father who fondly loved him, did not disrelish the proposal; and without much difficulty consented to it. He now laid aside the thoughts of physic, and turned his attention to the study of divinity; nor was he in haste for the promised living’s being vacated, as he was resolved not to take orders till he was properly qualified for the holy profession he was now destined to. He continued thus four years with his young patron; the gentleman who possessed the living, though very sickly still holding it.

My father then being inclined to go into orders, his friend got him nominated to a cure in town, the duties of which he constantly performed for two years, still living with his benefactor: but it was his misfortune then to lose him. He was drowned in crossing a deep water on horse-back which he thought was fordable. My poor father had now lost, as it proved, his only friend; though he then lamented him as a son he loved; and I have heard him say he was more afflicted for his death, than his real father was.

As that nobleman was well acquainted with his son’s intentions in regard to his tutor, my father had no doubts of his fulfilling them, especially as he had given his promise to do so. About this time the curate of the parish in Berkshire which I mentioned to you before, having a mind to make an exchange for one in London where all his friends lived, proposed it to my father who had been at college with him. As he had now no attachment in town, and preferred a country life, he readily agreed to the change; and having first waited on the father of his late friend to remind him of his promise, which he again confirmed, he went down to Berkshire. Here it was he fell in love with my mother, who was the daughter of the rector whose cure he served; she liked him, and as her father looked upon him as a man certain of preferment, and every way esteemable in his character, he did not scruple to give her to him.

In a few months after their marriage, the incumbent of the long-promised living died.

My father immediately waited on the nobleman, so sure of success that he thought he should have nothing to do but to thank him for it; but that Lord told him with a pretended concern, that he had disposed of it, having heard that my father was well provided for in Berkshire, and had married a lady of great fortune.