Accordingly his father
taught him not only to play, but also instructed him in the theory
and literature of music, and, when he was old enough, had him
entered as a chorister in Bristol Cathedral, where, in addition to
vocal music, he was carefully taught the art of organ-playing by the
Cathedral organist.
The boy soon became able to play quite skilfully, and when his voice
began to give way he obtained a position as organist in the church
at Shirehampton, performing on a small instrument with one row of
keys. From Shirehampton he shortly removed to a more remunerative
position in Bristol, and he was not long there before he fell in
love with the daughter of a hotel-keeper in one of the suburbs, whom,
in spite of the remonstrance of both relatives and friends, he
eventually married, although she was both poor and plain-looking,
and at least ten years his senior. "A young man married is a man
that's marred" says Shakespeare, and, without venturing an opinion
as to the correctness of this theory, we may say that young
Grandison had made a great mistake. In a short time his affection,
or fancied affection, for his wife became less ardent, and he found
himself at the age of twenty-four, married to a woman who had
neither taste nor sympathy in common with him, the father of three
helpless children, and the recipient of the stupendous emolument of
sixty pounds a year.
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