There was unquestionably a Chuzzlewit in the Gunpowder Plot, if indeed
the arch-traitor, Fawkes himself, were not a scion of this remarkable
stock; as he might easily have been, supposing another Chuzzlewit
to have emigrated to Spain in the previous generation, and there
intermarried with a Spanish lady, by whom he had issue, one
olive-complexioned son. This probable conjecture is strengthened, if not
absolutely confirmed, by a fact which cannot fail to be interesting
to those who are curious in tracing the progress of hereditary tastes
through the lives of their unconscious inheritors. It is a notable
circumstance that in these later times, many Chuzzlewits, being
unsuccessful in other pursuits, have, without the smallest rational
hope of enriching themselves, or any conceivable reason, set up as
coal-merchants; and have, month after month, continued gloomily to watch
a small stock of coals, without in any one instance negotiating with a
purchaser. The remarkable similarity between this course of proceeding
and that adopted by their Great Ancestor beneath the vaults of the
Parliament House at Westminster, is too obvious and too full of
interest, to stand in need of comment.
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