* * * * *
“I must tell you advice is to me this morning, that Anson[225] had taken three Ships laden with silver, and is going to Chagre, and from thence to Panama; Vernon and Wentworth are to go with him, and Trelawney is to accompany them to reconcile their resolutions.”
[224] David Garrick, born 1716, died 1779. Made his first appearance on the stage in 1741.
[225] Admiral Lord Anson, born 1697, died 1762. Eminent naval commander.
At this period Morris Robinson lost his beloved college friend, a Mr. Carter, a most promising youth, from smallpox. Morris attended him until his death, and was almost inconsolable for his loss.
CHAPTER IV.
ENGAGEMENT AND EARLY MARRIED LIFE.
I have made but few allusions to Elizabeth’s love triumphs, but as the time approaches when she was to make her final choice, I must now allude to them. There was a certain “Mr. B.,” from what I can gather a Mr. Brockman, of Beechborough, a fine place near Mount Morris, who had been desperately in love with her for some time; he is frequently alluded to in the family letters. In one to Sarah at this period Elizabeth says—
“Poor Mr. B. really takes his misfortunes so to heart that he is literally dying, indeed I hear he is very ill, which I am sorry for, but I have no balsam of heartsease for him, if he should die I will have him buried in Westminster Abbey next the woman that died of a prick of a finger, for it is quite as extraordinary, and he shall have his figure languishing in wax, with ‘Miss Robinson, fecit,’ wrote over his head; upon my word I compassionate his pains, and pity him, but as I am as compassionate, I am as cold too as Charity. He pours out his soul in lamentations to his friends, and ‘all but the nymph that should redress his wrong, attend his passion and approve his song,’ for the Rhyme will have it so. I am glad he has such a stock of flesh to waste upon. Waller says that—
“‘Sleep from careful Lovers flies
To bathe himself in Sacharissa’s eyes.’”