Excerpt
MEMOIRS OF A CAVALIER. PART I.
It may suffice the reader, without being very inquisitive after my name, that I was born in the county of Salop, in the year 1608, under the government of what star I was never astrologer enough to examine; but the consequences of my life may allow me to suppose some extraordinary influence affected my birth.
My father was a gentleman of a very plentiful fortune, having an estate of above £5000 per annum, of a family nearly allied to several of the principal nobility, and lived about six miles from the town; and my mother being at —— on some particular occasion, was surprised there at a friend's house, and brought me very safe into the world.
I was my father's second son, and therefore was not altogether so much slighted as younger sons of good families generally are. But my father saw something in my genius also which particularly pleased him, and so made him take extraordinary care of my education.
I was taught, therefore, by the best masters that could be had, everything that was needful to accomplish a young gentleman for the world; and at seventeen years old my tutor told my father an academic education was very proper for a person of quality, and he thought me very fit for it: so my father entered me of —— College in Oxford, where I continued three years.
A collegiate life did not suit me at all, though I loved books well enough. It was never designed that I should be either a lawyer, physician, or divine; and I wrote to my father that I thought I had stayed there long enough for a gentleman, and with his leave I desired to give him a visit.
During my stay at Oxford, though I passed through the proper exercises of the house, yet my chief reading was upon history and geography, as that which pleased my mind best, and supplied me with ideas most suitable to my genius; by one I understood what great actions had been done in the world, and by the other I understood where they had been done.
My father readily complied with my desire of coming home; for besides that he thought, as I did, that three years' time at the university was enough, he also most passionately loved me, and began to think of my settling near him.
At my arrival I found myself extraordinarily caressed by my father, and he seemed to take a particular delight in my conversation. My mother, who lived in perfect union with him both in desires and affection, received me very passionately. Apartments were provided for me by myself, and horses and servants allowed me in particular.
My father never went a-hunting, an exercise he was exceeding fond of, but he would have me with him; and it pleased him when he found me like the sport. I lived thus, in all the pleasures 'twas possible for me to enjoy, for about a year more, when going out one morning with my father to hunt a stag, and having had a very hard chase, and gotten a great way off from home, we had leisure enough to ride gently back; and as we returned my father took occasion to enter into a serious discourse with me concerning the manner of my settling in the world....