Page:Modern literature (1804 Volume 1).djvu/310

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whose father, a very great farmer near Richmond, had acquired a considerable property by speculating in corn and cattle, and by horse-dealing; and his fortune being more than doubled by the death of a brother, an opulent manufacturer: a short time before he had died, leaving to this his only child, an estate of two thousand pounds a year. This youth having been intended by his father for following his own footsteps, had received little education, except so far as related to rearing horses, and disposing of them to the best advantage. In this last branch he, though only six and twenty, had already attained such skill that he could over-reach colonel O'Blackleg himself, and was fast adding to his fortune. He, like his father, was also a skilful corn-dealer and grazier. Acquing his money with great ease, though not liberal to other persons, he was not