Mr. Prigg had descended from the well-known family of Prigg, and he prided himself on the circumstance. How often was he seen in the little churchyard of Yokelton of a Sunday morning, both before and after service, pointing with family pride to the tombstone of a relative which bore this beautiful and touching inscription:—
here
lie the ashes of
Mr. John Prigg,
of smith street, bristol,
originally of duck green, yokelton,
who under peculiar disadvantages
which to common minds
would have been a bar to any exertions
raised himself from all obscure situations
of birth and fortune
by his own industry and frugality
to the enjoyment of a moderate competency.
he attained a peculiar excellence
in penmanship and drawing
without the instructions of a master,
and to eminence in arithmetic,
the useful and the higher branches of
the mathematics,
by going to school only a year and eight months.
he
died a bachelor
on the 24th day of october, 1807,
in the 55th year of his age;
and without forgetting
relations friends and acquaintances
bequeathed one fifth of his property
to public charity.
reader
the world is open to thee.
“go thou and do likewise.” [22]
It was generally supposed that this beautiful composition was from the pen of Mr. Prigg himself, who, sitting as he did so high on his branch of the Family Tree,
could look
with pride and sympathy
on
the manly struggles
of a humbler member
lower down!
High Birth, like Great Wealth, can afford to condescend!
Mrs. Prigg was worthy of her illustrious consort. She was of the noble family of the Snobs, and in every way did honour to her progenitors. As the reader is aware, there is what is known as a “cultivated voice,” the result of education—it is absolutely without affectation: there is also the voice which, in imitation of the well-trained one, is little more than a burlesque, and is
affected in the highest degree: this was the only fault in Mrs. Prigg’s voice.