BRichard Ayten nyaved by #5 Seww pom a Drewing by Enbird shall Pubathed by Taylor & Felser Wuterivo Flace & Fleet Street AND SKETCHES OF CHARACTER. BY THE LATE RICHARD AYTON, ESQ. WITH A MEMOIR OF HIS LIFE. By Thinks Stothard LONDON: PRINTED FOR TAYLOR AND HESSEY, 93, FLEET-STREET, AND 13, WATERLOO-PLACE, PALL-MALL. 1825. MEMOIR. [by Stothard, the l'acilir. "I RICHARD AYTON, the author of the following essays, was born in London in the year 1786. He was the fourth son of the late William Ayton, esq. of Macclesfield in Cheshire, and the grandson of the late William Ayton, esq. banker of Lombard-street. He received the first rudiments of his education at the late Mr. Revoult's at Walworth, but upon the removal of his father from London to Macclesfield, in the year 1794, he was placed at the grammar school of that town, under the tuition of the Rev. Dr. Davies: here he was indefatigable in his studies, and, by his own zeal and the friendly aid of his most able and kind instructor, he became an excellent Greek and Latin scholar. At this period of his life he distinguished himself by his good sense, his humour, his copious flow of words, and his happy selection of them; and these qualifications determined his father to educate him for the bar, and to send him to college; but the lamented death of his father, and that of his grandfather, which took place within a few months of each other, in the years 1799 and 1800, so diminished the resources of his family, that the idea of sending him to college was relinquished, although the rest of the plan was retained ; and it was thought advisable in furtherance of it to send him for a year, to study the law under an eminent solicitor at Manchester: here his industry forsook him, and it is tolerably certain that he reaped no professional benefit from this probation. At the end of the year he came to London, and was placed with one of our first special pleaders for two years: but his dislike of the law gained ground daily, and he passed his time in any way rather than in the study of it. At the completion of these two years, he became of age; and as soon as he attained the absolute control of his property, he quitted the law and went to reside on the coast of Sussex, in |