Chapter 1

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 hefound occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, bycontemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally intopity and contempt, as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century — and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he couldread 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, Nov. 5,1789; Mary, born Nov. 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 ofhimself and his family, these words, after the date of Mary’s birth — “married, Dec. 16, 1810, Charles, son and heir of Charles Musgrove, Esq. ofUppercross, 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; howmentioned in Dugdale — serving the office of High Sheriff, representing a borough in three successive parliaments, exertions of loyalty, and dignityof 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: