Sir Pitt Crawley was a philosopher with a taste for what is called lowlife. His first marriage with the daughter of the noble Binkie hadbeen made under the auspices of his parents; and as he often told LadyCrawley in her lifetime she was such a confounded quarrelsome high-bredjade that when she died he was hanged if he would ever take another ofher sort, at her ladyship's demise he kept his promise, and selectedfor a second wife Miss Rose Dawson, daughter of Mr. John Thomas Dawson,ironmonger, of Mudbury. What a happy woman was Rose to be my LadyCrawley!

Let us set down the items of her happiness. In the first place, shegave up Peter Butt, a young man who kept company with her, and inconsequence of his disappointment in love, took to smuggling, poaching,and a thousand other bad courses. Then she quarrelled, as in dutybound, with all the friends and intimates of her youth, who, of course,could not be received by my Lady at Queen's Crawley--nor did she findin her new rank and abode any persons who were willing to welcome her.Who ever did? Sir Huddleston Fuddleston had three daughters who allhoped to be Lady Crawley. Sir Giles Wapshot's family were insultedthat one of the Wapshot girls had not the preference in the marriage,and the remaining baronets of the county were indignant at theircomrade's misalliance. Never mind the commoners, whom we will leave togrumble anonymously.

Sir Pitt did not care, as he said, a brass farden for any one of them.He had his pretty Rose, and what more need a man require than to pleasehimself? So he used to get drunk every night: to beat his pretty Rosesometimes: to leave her in Hampshire when he went to London for theparliamentary session, without a single friend in the wide world. EvenMrs. Bute Crawley, the Rector's wife, refused to visit her, as she saidshe would never give the pas to a tradesman's daughter.

As the only endowments with which Nature had gifted Lady Crawley werethose of pink cheeks and a white skin, and as she had no sort ofcharacter, nor talents, nor opinions, nor occupations, nor amusements,nor that vigour of soul and ferocity of temper which often falls to thelot of entirely foolish women, her hold upon Sir Pitt's affections wasnot very great. Her roses faded out of her cheeks, and the prettyfreshness left her figure after the birth of a couple of children, andshe became a mere machine in her husband's house of no more use thanthe late Lady Crawley's grand piano. Being a light-complexioned woman,she wore light clothes, as most blondes will, and appeared, inpreference, in draggled sea-green, or slatternly sky-blue. She workedthat worsted day and night, or other pieces like it. She hadcounterpanes in the course of a few years to all the beds in Crawley.She had a small flower-garden, for which she had rather an affection;but beyond this no other like or disliking. When her husband was rudeto her she was apathetic: whenever he struck her she cried. She hadnot character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about, slipshodand in curl-papers all day. O Vanity Fair--Vanity Fair! This mighthave been, but for you, a cheery lass--Peter Butt and Rose a happy manand wife, in a snug farm, with a hearty family; and an honest portionof pleasures, cares, hopes and struggles--but a title and a coach andfour are toys more precious than happiness in Vanity Fair: and if Harrythe Eighth or Bluebeard were alive now, and wanted a tenth wife, do yousuppose he could not get the prettiest girl that shall be presentedthis season?

The languid dulness of their mamma did not, as it may be supposed,awaken much affection in her little daughters, but they were very happyin the servants' hall and in the stables; and the Scotch gardenerhaving luckily a good wife and some good children, they got a littlewholesome society and instruction in his lodge, which was the onlyeducation bestowed upon them until Miss Sharp came.

Her engagement was owing to the remonstrances of Mr. Pitt Crawley, theonly friend or protector Lady Crawley ever had, and the only person,besides her children, for whom she entertained a little feebleattachment. Mr. Pitt took after the noble Binkies, from whom he wasdescended, and was a very polite and proper gentleman. When he grew toman's estate, and came back from Christchurch, he began to reform theslackened discipline of the hall, in spite of his father, who stood inawe of him. He was a man of such rigid refinement, that he would havestarved rather than have dined without a white neckcloth. Once, whenjust from college, and when Horrocks the butler brought him a letterwithout placing it previously on a tray, he gave that domestic a look,and administered to him a speech so cutting, that Horrocks ever aftertrembled before him; the whole household bowed to him: Lady Crawley'scurl-papers came off earlier when he was at home: Sir Pitt's muddygaiters disappeared; and if that incorrigible old man still adhered toother old habits, he never fuddled himself with rum-and-water in hisson's presence, and only talked to his servants in a very reserved andpolite manner; and those persons remarked that Sir Pitt never swore atLady Crawley while his son was in the room.

It was he who taught the butler to say, "My lady is served," and whoinsisted on handing her ladyship in to dinner. He seldom spoke to her,but when he did it was with the most powerful respect; and he never lether quit the apartment without rising in the most stately manner toopen the door, and making an elegant bow at her egress.

At Eton he was called Miss Crawley; and there, I am sorry to say, hisyounger brother Rawdon used to lick him violently. But though hisparts were not brilliant, he made up for his lack of talent bymeritorious industry, and was never known, during eight years atschool, to be subject to that punishment which it is generally thoughtnone but a cherub can escape.

At college his career was of course highly creditable. And here heprepared himself for public life, into which he was to be introduced bythe patronage of his grandfather, Lord Binkie, by studying the ancientand modern orators with great assiduity, and by speaking unceasingly atthe debating societies. But though he had a fine flux of words, anddelivered his little voice with great pomposity and pleasure tohimself, and never advanced any sentiment or opinion which was notperfectly trite and stale, and supported by a Latin quotation; yet hefailed somehow, in spite of a mediocrity which ought to have insuredany man a success. He did not even get the prize poem, which all hisfriends said he was sure of.

After leaving college he became Private Secretary to Lord Binkie, andwas then appointed Attache to the Legation at Pumpernickel, which posthe filled with perfect honour, and brought home despatches, consistingof Strasburg pie, to the Foreign Minister of the day. After remainingten years Attache (several years after the lamented Lord Binkie'sdemise), and finding the advancement slow, he at length gave up thediplomatic service in some disgust, and began to turn country gentleman.

He wrote a pamphlet on Malt on returning to England (for he was anambitious man, and always liked to be before the public), and took astrong part in the Negro Emancipation question. Then he became afriend of Mr. Wilberforce's, whose politics he admired, and had thatfamous correspondence with the Reverend Silas Hornblower, on theAshantee Mission. He was in London, if not for the Parliament session,at least in May, for the religious meetings. In the country he was amagistrate, and an active visitor and speaker among those destitute ofreligious instruction. He was said to be paying his addresses to LadyJane Sheepshanks, Lord Southdown's third daughter, and whose sister,Lady Emily, wrote those sweet tracts, "The Sailor's True Binnacle," and"The Applewoman of Finchley Common."

Miss Sharp's accounts of his employment at Queen's Crawley were notcaricatures. He subjected the servants there to the devotionalexercises before mentioned, in which (and so much the better) hebrought his father to join. He patronised an Independent meeting-housein Crawley parish, much to the indignation of his uncle the Rector, andto the consequent delight of Sir Pitt, who was induced to go himselfonce or twice, which occasioned some violent sermons at Crawley parishchurch, directed point-blank at the Baronet's old Gothic pew there.Honest Sir Pitt, however, did not feel the force of these discourses,as he always took his nap during sermon-time.

Mr. Crawley was very earnest, for the good of the nation and of theChristian world, that the old gentleman should yield him up his placein Parliament; but this the elder constantly refused to do. Both wereof course too prudent to give up the fifteen hundred a year which wasbrought in by the second seat (at this period filled by Mr. Quadroon,with carte blanche on the Slave question); indeed the family estate wasmuch embarrassed, and the income drawn from the borough was of greatuse to the house of Queen's Crawley.

It had never recovered the heavy fine imposed upon Walpole Crawley,first baronet, for peculation in the Tape and Sealing Wax Office. SirWalpole was a jolly fellow, eager to seize and to spend money (alieniappetens, sui profusus, as Mr. Crawley would remark with a sigh), andin his day beloved by all the county for the constant drunkenness andhospitality which was maintained at Queen's Crawley. The cellars werefilled with burgundy then, the kennels with hounds, and the stableswith gallant hunters; now, such horses as Queen's Crawley possessedwent to plough, or ran in the Trafalgar Coach; and it was with a teamof these very horses, on an off-day, that Miss Sharp was brought to theHall; for boor as he was, Sir Pitt was a stickler for his dignity whileat home, and seldom drove out but with four horses, and though he dinedoff boiled mutton, had always three footmen to serve it.

If mere parsimony could have made a man rich, Sir Pitt Crawley mighthave become very wealthy--if he had been an attorney in a country town,with no capital but his brains, it is very possible that he would haveturned them to good account, and might have achieved for himself a veryconsiderable influence and competency. But he was unluckily endowedwith a good name and a large though encumbered estate, both of whichwent rather to injure than to advance him. He had a taste for law,which cost him many thousands yearly; and being a great deal too cleverto be robbed, as he said, by any single agent, allowed his affairs tobe mismanaged by a dozen, whom he all equally mistrusted. He was such asharp landlord, that he could hardly find any but bankrupt tenants; andsuch a close farmer, as to grudge almost the seed to the ground,whereupon revengeful Nature grudged him the crops which she granted tomore liberal husbandmen. He speculated in every possible way; he workedmines; bought canal-shares; horsed coaches; took government contracts,and was the busiest man and magistrate of his county. As he would notpay honest agents at his granite quarry, he had the satisfaction offinding that four overseers ran away, and took fortunes with them toAmerica. For want of proper precautions, his coal-mines filled withwater: the government flung his contract of damaged beef upon hishands: and for his coach-horses, every mail proprietor in the kingdomknew that he lost more horses than any man in the country, fromunderfeeding and buying cheap. In disposition he was sociable, and farfrom being proud; nay, he rather preferred the society of a farmer or ahorse-dealer to that of a gentleman, like my lord, his son: he was fondof drink, of swearing, of joking with the farmers' daughters: he wasnever known to give away a shilling or to do a good action, but was ofa pleasant, sly, laughing mood, and would cut his joke and drink hisglass with a tenant and sell him up the next day; or have his laughwith the poacher he was transporting with equal good humour. Hispoliteness for the fair sex has already been hinted at by Miss RebeccaSharp--in a word, the whole baronetage, peerage, commonage of England,did not contain a more cunning, mean, selfish, foolish, disreputableold man. That blood-red hand of Sir Pitt Crawley's would be inanybody's pocket except his own; and it is with grief and pain, that,as admirers of the British aristocracy, we find ourselves obliged toadmit the existence of so many ill qualities in a person whose name isin Debrett.

One great cause why Mr. Crawley had such a hold over the affections ofhis father, resulted from money arrangements. The Baronet owed his sona sum of money out of the jointure of his mother, which he did not findit convenient to pay; indeed he had an almost invincible repugnance topaying anybody, and could only be brought by force to discharge hisdebts. Miss Sharp calculated (for she became, as we shall hearspeedily, inducted into most of the secrets of the family) that themere payment of his creditors cost the honourable Baronet severalhundreds yearly; but this was a delight he could not forego; he had asavage pleasure in making the poor wretches wait, and in shifting fromcourt to court and from term to term the period of satisfaction.What's the good of being in Parliament, he said, if you must pay yourdebts? Hence, indeed, his position as a senator was not a little usefulto him.

Vanity Fair--Vanity Fair! Here was a man, who could not spell, and didnot care to read--who had the habits and the cunning of a boor: whoseaim in life was pettifogging: who never had a taste, or emotion, orenjoyment, but what was sordid and foul; and yet he had rank, andhonours, and power, somehow: and was a dignitary of the land, and apillar of the state. He was high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach.Great ministers and statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair he had ahigher place than the most brilliant genius or spotless virtue.

Sir Pitt had an unmarried half-sister who inherited her mother's largefortune, and though the Baronet proposed to borrow this money of her onmortgage, Miss Crawley declined the offer, and preferred the securityof the funds. She had signified, however, her intention of leaving herinheritance between Sir Pitt's second son and the family at theRectory, and had once or twice paid the debts of Rawdon Crawley in hiscareer at college and in the army. Miss Crawley was, in consequence, anobject of great respect when she came to Queen's Crawley, for she had abalance at her banker's which would have made her beloved anywhere.

What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the banker's! Howtenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative (and may everyreader have a score of such), what a kind good-natured old creature wefind her! How the junior partner of Hobbs and Dobbs leads her smilingto the carriage with the lozenge upon it, and the fat wheezy coachman!How, when she comes to pay us a visit, we generally find an opportunityto let our friends know her station in the world! We say (and withperfect truth) I wish I had Miss MacWhirter's signature to a cheque forfive thousand pounds. She wouldn't miss it, says your wife. She is myaunt, say you, in an easy careless way, when your friend asks if MissMacWhirter is any relative. Your wife is perpetually sending herlittle testimonies of affection, your little girls work endless worstedbaskets, cushions, and footstools for her. What a good fire there isin her room when she comes to pay you a visit, although your wife lacesher stays without one! The house during her stay assumes a festive,neat, warm, jovial, snug appearance not visible at other seasons. Youyourself, dear sir, forget to go to sleep after dinner, and findyourself all of a sudden (though you invariably lose) very fond of arubber. What good dinners you have--game every day, Malmsey-Madeira,and no end of fish from London. Even the servants in the kitchen sharein the general prosperity; and, somehow, during the stay of MissMacWhirter's fat coachman, the beer is grown much stronger, and theconsumption of tea and sugar in the nursery (where her maid takes hermeals) is not regarded in the least. Is it so, or is it not so? Iappeal to the middle classes. Ah, gracious powers! I wish you wouldsend me an old aunt--a maiden aunt--an aunt with a lozenge on hercarriage, and a front of light coffee-coloured hair--how my childrenshould work workbags for her, and my Julia and I would make hercomfortable! Sweet--sweet vision! Foolish--foolish dream!