Let it not be supposed that he was a _soft_ man, who had
prospered through some lucky accident. He really was a thorough-paced
follower of the maxim which recommends buying in the cheapest and
selling in the dearest market: he was reputed as _keen_ in business.
But he was also kind-hearted and high-principled, and it is this union
of remarkable qualities which gives his memoirs their best value.
Mr Budgett was a general provision-merchant at Bristol, with also a
large warehouse at Kingswood Hill, where his private residence was.
His biographer presents him as he came daily into town to attend to
business. 'You might have often seen driving into Bristol, a man under
the middle size, verging towards sixty, wrapped up in a coat of deep
olive, with gray hair, an open countenance, a quick brown eye, and an
air less expressive of polish than of push. He drives a phaeton, with
a first-rate horse, at full speed. He looks as if he had work to do,
and had the art of doing it. On the way, he overtakes a woman carrying
a bundle. In an instant, the horse is reined up by her side, and a
voice of contagious promptitude tells her to put up her bundle and
mount. The voice communicates to the astonished pedestrian its own
energy.
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