Thomas Weston

“ In 1523 Weston served under Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk [q. v.] , in France; in 1525 he became treasurer of Calais, and in 1528 under-treasurer of England. In 1533 Henry paid a state visit to Sutton, and a little later Thomas Cromwell was a guest there. In 1539 Weston was appointed to meet Anne of Cleves on her landing in England. He must then have been considerably over seventy years of age. In 1542 he surrendered his post of sub-treasurer of England ‘ob senectutem debilitatam et continuam infirmitatem’ (20 Jan.) ”

“ Elizabeth Jane Weston, born about 1558, was gifted with fine talent, which was highly cultivated. She left England young, and settled in Prague. She wrote several Latin books in prose and verse, highly esteemed by the learned men of the time. She is ranked on the Continent with Sir Thomas More and the best Latin poets of the century, was highly praised by Scaliger, and complimented by Nicholas May in a Latin epigram. She married Mr. John Leon, a gentleman of the Emperor’s Court. ”

“ The lord-treasurer Weston picked out the northern cock, Sir Thomas, to make him the king's creature, and set him upon the first step of his rising; which was wormwood in the taste of Eliot, who revenged himself upon the king in the Bill of Tonnage, and then fell upon the treasurer, and declaimed against him, that he was the author of all the evils under which the kingdom was oppressed." He proceeds to inform us, that Bishop Williams offered to bring Eliot over, for which Wentworth never forgave him. ”

“ After parting from his wife by mutual consent, Weston appeared at Drury Lane in the summer of 1761, under the management of Foote and Murphy, in several original parts: Brush in Murphy's ‘All in the Wrong’ on 15 June, Dapper in Murphy's ‘Citizen’ on 2 July, and Doctor in Thomas Bentley's ‘Wishes, or Harlequin's Mouth opened,’ on the 27th. ”

“ The Westons soon became favourites with both the officers and cabin passengers of the Surat Castle. Mr Weston himself was a well-bred, well-informed man of pleasing address and manners; in person tall and powerfully built (old Weatherhelm was the only one on board who approached him in height) , with a handsome but rather sad countenance, and dark curly hair just slightly grizzled.
George Weston, though he had not had the advantage of a public-school education, was as nice a lad as anyone could wish to meet; well-behaved and intelligent, quiet and studiously inclined. ”

“ None of the Westons had ever been remarkable for genius—a fact of which they were rather proud than otherwise. They had for several generations been content to be men of local importance in a secluded nook of rural England, which is not the kind of life that is conducive to original thought or enterprising action. They had chosen wives like themselves from among their neighbors, and it was perhaps in several respects not altogether fortunate for Clarence Weston that his mother had been ultra-conservative in her respect for traditions, since he had inherited one side of her nature. ”

“ She died at Caen in Normandy late in 1789 or early in 1790, of consumption, in her thirty-second year; and late in 1790 Weston resigned the living of Mamhead, but he retained the benefice of Little Hempston until 1823.
After the death of his wife, Weston devoted himself to art and literature. He was elected F.R.S. on 1 March 1792 and F.S.A. on 18 Dec. 1794, and lived for some years among the dilettanti in London. He was dubbed by Mathias and George Steevens ‘Classic Weston’ (Pursuits of Literature, 3rd dialogue) , and he had a numerous circle of lady admirers who fed his vanity. ”

“ George Weston is about twenty-nine years of age, five feet seven inches high, square-set, round-faced, fresh-coloured, pitted with small-pox, has a rather thick nose, his upper lip rather thick, his hair of lightest brown colour, which is sometimes tied behind, and at other times loose and curled; has much the appearance of a country dealer, or farmer. ”

“ For a long time George Weston lay in that awful state which is neither death nor life—when the spirit seems to be hovering round the body, uncertain whether to wing its flight for ever from the tenement of earth, or return to sojourn still longer in its old familiar dwelling-house. ”

“ Weston and raised one eyebrow; she nodded comprehendingly. Later in the evening, when he dropped into a steamer-chair beside her, he asked if she had seen Bobby.
"Not since dinner. All the young people have been asking for her. Did you look in the writing-room ?"
"I've looked everywhere except in the coal-bunkers," said the captain, gruffly. "Talk to me about responsibility. I'd rather run a schooner up the Hoogli than to steer that girl of mine."
"You've wakened to your duty rather late, haven't you!" asked Mrs. Weston. "I suppose it's the Englishman who is making you anxious?" ”

“ And any one passing through that basement door in the evening might have been edified by the sight of a blue-eyed youth making clumsy entries in a very small ledger and inking himself to the roots of his hair. Whether or not little Miss Mercer was so edified, however, is another matter altogether, for when she appeared before Mr. Willets that evening, with Snootzy under her arm and Dotty's cage in her hand, she was hardly in the frame of mind to make any detailed observations. ”

“ You have either got to give me up, or give up that hateful Nicodemus—and I prefer that you shall give up Nicodemus."
"But I can't live on your money!"
"No; but you can make enough yourself."
"How?"
"Oh, you'll find a way," she confidently told him. "You can brush up on your medical course, and be a doctor or something." She rested her chin on her palm and leaned over toward him. "Mortimer!" she whispered. He looked at her and his heart went on strike. "Do you love me?" she whispered again.
"Rose!" he cried, and his heart went back to work with an increase of wages. ”

“ The stranger, therefore, who has for many years been familiar with severe and undiscriminating criticisms of Weston finds it, when at last fate brings him hither, a very much more likeable place than he had dared hope. ”

“ Weston says that is all that reconciles him to the business; he says a man learns more there than he ever does in college. He considers the training invaluable; he says it will be of great help to him in literature, if he can ever get into literature—he isn’t sure yet that he can. He can tell better after his book is published. And he says a newspaper experience will help me in the law, too, that is,” Marley added, with a whimsical imitation of Weston’s despairing uncertainty, “if I can ever get into the law.”
“You think a great deal of Mr. Weston, don’t you?” said Lavinia. ”

“ The third volume of ‘Dramatic Table Talk’ prints a mock will which Weston is credited with having made a few weeks before his death. In this, the ill-nature of which is at least as conspicuous as its wit, he leaves to Foote, from whom he derived it, all his consequence; to Garrick his money, ‘as there is nothing on earth he is so very fond of;’ to Reddish a grain of honesty, which is a rarity he must value ”

“ Mr. Willets sighed over his little ledger with force enough to blow it nearly off the counter, and Miss Mercer even went so far as to leave Dotty without any water in his cup for two whole days. But one night when the wind was blowing gently against the shutter, the little milliner had a famous idea. "If the bricks blow down again," he had said to her, "all you have to do is to let me know." She stared at the stars steadily for five minutes. Then, picking up a tack-hammer and a pair of scissors, she went up on the roof and began picking and scratching at the mortar between the chimney bricks. ”

“ Last month he rented Doctor Baldwin's old house, furnished, but he's still taking his meals at Mrs. Potter's."
With heightened color Charlotte started up the street toward Mr. Briggs' livery stable and, thinking of the things which her aunt had told her, she looked curiously at the big house on top of the hill where her pretty cousin lived.
"Poor Margaret!" she thought. "Willis has probably found her out. And when a man is attracted to a girl because of her looks, after a while he's just as apt to be attracted by another girl because of her looks. Perhaps Margaret has found that out." ”

“ Weston took her seat by her husband's side in the gig, which had been newly painted and varnished since the worthy couple's hegira from Stanfield.
The surgeon was not an ambitious man, nor a designing man; he was simply stupid and lazy—lazy although, in spite of himself, he led an active and hard-working life; but there are many square men whose sides are cruelly tortured by the pressure of the round holes into which they are ill-advisedly thrust, and if our destinies were meted out to us in strict accordance with our temperaments, Mr. Weston should have been a lotus-eater. ”

“ And no one who looked at little Miss Neames could reverse the verdict of Mr. Ridge. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were pink, and she carried herself with a certain cozy assurance that was a delight to see. Moreover, she had focussed all her art in the making of a blue silk dress which fitted her to perfection, and which brought out the roses in her cheeks and laughed at the hint of gray in her hair. In a word, it was quite impossible to contradict Mr. Ridge when he sank into an easy chair near the window and looked at her and said, "It seems good to be here." ”

“ If any escape, it will be young Weston, for whom importunate suit is made.”
Great interest was felt in Sir F. Weston. The appearance of his wife and mother in court had created general compassion for him. He was young, rich, accomplished. He was well known in Paris, had been much liked there. M. d’Intevelle, who had been his friend, hurried over to save him, and the Bishop of Tarbes, the resident Ambassador, earnestly interceded. Money, if money could be of use, was ready to be lavished. But like Norris, Weston had been distinguished by Henry with peculiar favour ”

“ Twenty-five dollars a week! I wonder, indeed, if a sum so small would even buy clothes for the one I passed on the hill! Half an hour of daylight left," he broke off, noticing the shadows. "I think it would be wise to find that water before it grows too dark."
Putting a collapsible pail over his arm, he followed the slope of the land to the gully which he was sure he would find not far away. The farther he went the closer grew the trees and the thicker the brush.
"It cannot be much farther," he told himself. "The land rises immediately ahead. Hello! ”

“ Accompanied by the shouts of the crew, and preceded by Will White, playing "Rule Britannia" on a violin, old Father Neptune was drawn on a species of hurdle aft to the quarter-deck, where Weston stood ready to receive him, with his hat in one hand, and a case-bottle of brandy in the other.
Under an old swab, which had been well dried and curled to make a wig for the son of Saturn and Vesta, I recognized the grotesquely-tattooed visage of my friend Tom Lambourne. A cutlass was stuck in his girdle, and he wore a huge paunch of canvas stuffed with oakum. ”

“ Not that he was satisfied with himself or his surroundings; he did not like newspaper work, and he did not like Chicago very well. He was determined to get out of newspaper work at any rate, and while he could not yet clearly see a way of getting into the law, he had a calm assurance that he would do it, in the end. Weston sustained him in this hope by saying:
“A man can’t control circumstances; they control him; but sometimes he can dodge them, and, after all, every sincere prayer is answered.” ”

“ In came Miss Weston, a pretty girl, coquettishly dressed in colours, with sparkling eyes and laughing lips. As she had predicted, she was followed by her attendant spectre, a tall, gaunt young man in a black frock-coat, with a melancholy face and large ox-eyes. ”

“ I hate flies, of course, but when it comes right down to one little fly, sitting there all by himself, somehow I don't seem to hate him so much. And he is such a nice one."
"Who is?" I asked, beginning to wonder again.
"Our fly," said Alicia, thoughtfully playing with her fork.
"Our fly?" I asked, all at sea for the second time. "Our fly?"
"Yes," said Alicia, "the one in the trap. Come and look at him, Edward."
She cut up a plate of meat for Fido and Peter and put it in the corner of the pantry in its usual place. ”

“ On the nomination of Lord Lisburne, a friend in early life, Weston was admitted on 29 March 1777 to the rectory of Mamhead, Devonshire, on the hill overlooking the river Exe, and during his incumbency he rebuilt the parsonage-house. He was instituted on 17 Jan. 1784 to the rectory of Little Hempston, near Totnes in the same county, where he purchased and placed in the north chancel window of the church some curious stained glass which had been in Marldon church (Worthy, Devon Parishes, ii. 77–81) . ”

“ It was after he had spent years in rounding out his education abroad, and had returned to take his place in those circles which he believed he was entitled to enter, that he found that the world persisted in pointing to the large revenue stamp that seemed to cling to him. A stronger man would have fought against odds like those and won for himself a place that would suffer no denial. But Weston was physically a delicate man. ”

“ Weston, and are very glad they are freed of him, he being judged a man yt thought him selfe above ye generall, and not expresing so much ye fear of God as was meete in a man to whom shuch trust should have been reposed in a matter of so great importance. I am sparing to be so plaine as indeed is clear against him; but a few words to ye wise.
Mr. Weston will not permitte leters to be sent in his ships, nor any thing for your good or ours, of which ther is some reason in respecte of him selfe, &c. ”