Vincy, Fred

Eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Vincy; a good-looking young man with an irrepressibly hopeful disposition who chooses farming instead of the Church for which he had been educated. "Fred disliked bad weather within doors. He was too filial to be disrespectful to his father ... it was disagreeable ... to be obliged to look sulky instead of having fun; for Fred was so goodtempered that if he looked glum under scolding it was chiefly for propriety's sake . . . Fred piqued himself on keeping clear of lies, and even fibs . . . and rather than incur the accusation of falsehood he would even incur some trouble and self-restraint . . . Fred was not at all coarse ... he rather looked down on the manners and speech of young men who had not been to the university. A favourite of his uncle, the rich Mr. Featherstone, he is regarded by himself and his family as the old man's heir, and he looks forward to an easy, pleasant life. When his uncle dies, leaving his money to a natural son, Fred receives nothing and finds it necessary to decide what he is to make of himself, as his father cannot support him in idleness. Since childhood he has loved Mary Garth, and it is mainly through her influence that he disappoints his family and gives up the Church, for which he has been educated. Through Fred's thoughtlessness Mr. Garth loses money which he can ill afford to spare, but in spite of that, for Mary's sake, takes Fred into his office as his assistant, and Fred applies himself to his new work in the hope of winning Mary. His generous rival, Mr. Farebrother, helps him at a critical period. Later he is made manager of Stone Court, the property which he had once expected to inherit, and he then marries Mary and becomes a successful and happy farmer, very steady and devoted to his wife and sons

<em>Middlemarch</em>

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