Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire,
was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up
any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation
for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed
one; there his faculties were roused into admiration
and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant
of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations,
arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into
pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless
creations of the last century; and there, if every
other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history
with an interest which never failed. This was
the page at which the favourite volume always opened:
“Elliot of
Kellynch Hall.
“Walter Elliot, born March 1, 1760, married,
July 15, 1784, Elizabeth, daughter of James Stevenson,
Esq. of South Park, in the county of Gloucester, by
which lady (who died 1800) he has issue Elizabeth,
born June 1, 1785; Anne, born August 9, 1787; a still-born
son, November 5, 1789; Mary, born November 20, 1791.”
Precisely such had the paragraph originally stood
from the printer’s hands; but Sir Walter had
improved it by adding, for the information of himself
and his family, these words, after the date of Mary’s
birth— “Married, December 16, 1810,
Charles, son and heir of Charles Musgrove, Esq. of
Uppercross, in the county of Somerset,” and
by inserting most accurately the day of the month on
which he had lost his wife.
Then followed the history and rise of the ancient
and respectable family, in the usual terms; how it
had been first settled in Cheshire; how mentioned
in Dugdale, serving the office of high sheriff, representing
a borough in three successive parliaments, exertions
of loyalty, and dignity of baronet, in the first year
of Charles II, with all the Marys and Elizabeths they
had married; forming altogether two handsome duodecimo
pages, and concluding with the arms and motto:—“Principal
seat, Kellynch Hall, in the county of Somerset,”
and Sir Walter’s handwriting again in this finale:—
“Heir presumptive, William Walter Elliot, Esq.,
great grandson of the second Sir Walter.”
Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter
Elliot’s character; vanity of person and of
situation. He had been remarkably handsome in
his youth; and, at fifty-four, was still a very fine
man. Few women could think more of their personal
appearance than he did, nor could the valet of any
new made lord be more delighted with the place he
held in society. He considered the blessing of
beauty as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy;
and the Sir Walter Elliot, who united these gifts,
was the constant object of his warmest respect and
devotion.
