Abolished (saving the rights of the then holders of office) in 1812. 52 Geo. III. c. xi. ----- CHAPTER XII ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BOBBIN, 1797 Illness of Bobbin—Letters of Bobbin and her father’s replies—Dress minutes at the opera—Hoping against hope—Bobbin’s death—Seeking for consolation—Retrospection—Beginning of diary—Correspondence. This year, so fatal to every worldly hope, which overturned every prospect I had in life, and changed me almost as much as a new creation, opened in the common manner by my going to London to attend the meeting of the Board [of Agriculture]. I brought my dear angelic child[167] with me, who went to school in January, in good health but never in good spirits, for she abhorred school. Oh! what infatuation ever to send her to one. In the country she had health, spirits, and strength, as if there were not enough with what she might have learned at home, instead of going to that region of constraint and death, Camden House. The rules for health are detestable, no air but in a measured, formal walk, and all running and quick motion prohibited. Preposterous! She slept with a girl who could hear only with one ear, and so ever laid on one side; and my dear child could do no otherwise afterwards without pain; because the vile beds are so small that they must both lie the same way. The school discipline of all sorts, the food, &c. &c., all contributed. She never had a bellyful at breakfast. Detestable this at the expense of 80_l._ a year. Oh! how I regret ever putting her there, or to any other, for they are all theatres of knavery, illiberality, and infamy.[168] Upon her being ill in March I took her to my lodgings in Jermyn Street, where Dr. Turton attended her till April 12, when I carried her to Bradfield. He certainly mistook her case entirely, not believing in a consumption, and by physic brought her so low that she declined hourly; he stuffed her with medicine at a time when sending her at once to Bristol or even to Bradfield she went little more than skin and bone, with prescriptions for more physicking under a stupid fellow at Bury, who purged her till she was a spectre. On June 13 she went to Smiths’ (Bradfield neighbours), and there complained ‘that such a young girl as I who came for air and exercise should be _thus crammed with physic_.’ Poor thing! her instinct told her it was wrong, but she submitted. [Illustration: BOBBIN’ (MARTHA YOUNG). _From a miniature by Plymer._ ] _From Bobbin to her Father_