American literature -- History and criticism; Authors; English literature -- History and criticism
The real facts, however, are not so poetical; yet Hazlitt says that the
story outdoes the "Arabian Nights." The following particulars may be
regarded as a correct version of this romantic tale. Henry Cecil was born
in the year 1754, and was the only child of the Hon. Thomas Chambers Cecil
by his marriage with Miss Charlotte Gardner. At the age of nineteen he had
lost his parents, and was the presumptive heir to his uncle's estates and
the earldom of Exeter. He was by no means popular with his uncle, and
seldom troubled the inmates of Burleigh House with his presence. While
still a minor, he married into a good old west of England family, his wife
being a lady of great personal charms, named Emma Vernon, the only
daughter of the Squire of Hornbury Hall, in the county of Worcester. The
union was not a happy one, young Cecil being far from an exemplary
husband. He wasted much of his time and money in gambling. After fifteen
years of married life he sought and obtained a divorce. His own folly and
other circumstances rendered him a poor man, and induced him shortly
before the time he obtained a divorce to quit the society of those in his
rank of life, and settle down in one of the secluded villages in
Shropshire. He selected Bolas Magna, a charming little place, nestling
among apple orchards and green lanes. Here he was known as John Jones, and
was lost to the fashionable world, out of sight and out of mind. For a
short time he lodged at the village hostelry, freely conversing with the
customers who came at night to smoke their pipes and drink their beer. The
days he spent in sketching the pretty bits of scenery in the district.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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