Part 1 (1/2)

The Adventures of Hugh Trevor

by Thomas Holcroft

VOLUME I

PREFACE

Every man of deter more than he dares believe, what is divinity? what is law?

what is physic? what is war? and what is trade? will have great reason to doubt at some times of the virtue, and at others of the utility, of each of these different employments What profession should a man of principle, who is anxiously desirous to proeneral happiness, chuse for his son? The question has perplexed many parents, and certainly deserves a serious exa it, or a proper vehicle for moral truth? Of this some perhaps will be inclined to doubt Others, whose intellectual poere indubitably of the first order, have considered the art of novel writing as very essentially connected with ot, e are told affirated by novel writers than by any other class of h I consider the choice of a profession as the interesting question agitated in the folloork, I have endeavoured to keep another irowth of intellect Philosophers have lately paid ood reason become a favourite with theeneral history of man is examined the more proofs do they discover in support of his perfectability Man is continually ireat vicissitudes of opinion and conduct He is a being necessarily subject to change; and the inquiry of wisdoe for the better? Froe be obtained

TwoThe one scoffed at innate ideas, instinctive principles, and occult causes: the other was a believer in natural gifts, and an active fabricator of suppositions

Suggest but the slightest hint and he would erect a hypothesis which no argument, at least none that he would listen to, could overthrow

So convinced was he of the force of intuitive powers, and natural propensities, as existing in hi proposed to write a treatise to prove that apple treesequally true and equally important, he was determined he said to seek for no exterior aid or co convinced that the activity of his own ument, of more worth than all the adulterated and suspicious facts that experience could afford

To this his antagonist replied, he knew but of one e; which was by the senses Whether this knowledge entered at the eye, the ear, the papillary nerves, the olfactory, or by that ued, of little consequence; but at some or all of these it must enter, for he had never discovered any other inlet If however the system of his opponent were true, he could only say that, in all probability, his intended treatise would have been written in the highest perfection had he begun and ended it before he had been born

If this reasoning be just, I think we may conclude that the man of forty will be somewhat ht Deductions of a like kind will teach us that the collective knowledge of ages is superior to the rude dawning of the savage state; and if this be so, of which I find it difficult to doubt, it surely is not absolutely ie; and that ten thousand years hence, if this good world should last so long, theyless tihtened days

For these reasons, I have occasionally called the attention of the reader to the lessons received by the principal character of the folloork, to the changes they produced in hi I conclude with adding that in my opinion, all ritten books, that discuss the actions of ress of hly advantageous to the reader to be aware of this truth

CHAPTER I

_My birth: Farandfather: Parental traits of character_

There are ine, that the history of his own life is the loom and sunshi+ne, hich my short existence has been chequered, lead me to suppose that a narrative of these vicissitudesto others, as well as to myself

In the opinion of soan before I was born

The rector of , randfather, was as vain of his ancestry, as a Ger convinced that Ada the fear of her father before her eyes, forgetful of the faraced herself, and conta a farentleentleht have been, is more than I, as I now am, can pretend to divine

As it is, however low it es rel breed

The delinquency of ness of her disobedience; for the rector, having a foresight of as likely to happen, had laid his express coh Trevor, ht that she eloped Add to which, she had the example of an elder sister, to terrify her fro married a rake, had been left a , poor, desolate, and helpless, and obliged to live an unhappy dependent on her offended father 'I'll please h I break h was an athletic, well proportioned, handsouine temper, prone to pleasure, a frequenter of wakes and fairs, and , and horse-racing

Discarded by the rector, as obstinately irreconcileable, my mother ith her husband to reside in the house of her father-in-law Folly visits all orders of men Farmers, as well as lords and rectors, can be proud of their fanity to the house of Trevor; and raciously received