o undisturbed an indulgence in
his humours as I had imagined; but has been repeatedly thwarted of
late, and has suffered a kind of well-meaning persecution from a Mr.
Faddy, an old gentleman of some weight, at least of purse, who has
recently moved into the neighbourhood. He is a worthy and substantial
manufacturer, who, having accumulated a large fortune by dint of
steam-engines and spinning-jennies, has retired from business, and set
up for a country gentleman. He has taken an old country-seat, and
refitted it; and painted and plastered it, until it looks not unlike
his own manufactory. He has been particularly careful in mending the
walls and hedges, and putting up notices of spring-guns and man-traps
in every part of his premises. Indeed, he shows great jealousy about
his territorial rights, having stopped up a footpath that led across
his fields, and given warning, in staring letters, that whoever was
found trespassing on those grounds would be prosecuted with the utmost
rigour of the law. He has brought into the country with him all the
practical maxims of town, and the bustling habits of business; and is
one of those sensible, useful, prosing, troublesome, intolerable old
gentlemen, that go about wearying and worrying society with excellent
plans for public utility.

He is very much disposed to be on intimate terms with the Squire, and
calls on him every now and then, with some project for the good of the
neighbourhood, which happens to run diametrically opposite to some one
or other of the Squire's peculiar notions; but which is "too sensible
a measure" to be openly opposed. He has annoyed him excessively, by
enforcing the vagrant laws; persecuting the gipsies, and endeavouring
to suppress country wakes and holiday games; which he considers great
nuisances, and reprobates as causes of the deadly sin of idleness.

There is evidently in all this a little of the ostentation of
newly-acquired consequence; the tradesman is gradually swelling into
the aristocrat; and he begins to grow excessively intolerant of every
thing that is not genteel. He has a great deal to say about "the
common people;" talks much of his park, his preserves, and the
necessity of enforcing the game-laws more strictly; and makes frequent
use of the phrase, "the gentry of the neighbourhood."

He came to the Hall lately, with a face full of business, that he and
the Squire, to use his own words, "might lay their heads together," to
hit upon so