ery partial to the education of the lower orders,
and he always expressed himself well pleased when he met with a country
booby who could neither read nor write. For this reason Nick Muggins, the
postboy, was a great favourite with him. Our worthy baronet could not see
the use of reading, and he thought it a great piece of affectation for
country gentlemen to have libraries. His own books, for he had a few, were
huddled together in a light closet, where he kept his guns and sporting
tackle. There was a Lady Aimwell, wife to Sir George; but this lady was a
piece of still life, of whom the neighbours knew nothing, and for whom her
husband cared nothing.

Everybody in the neighbourhood remembers the impressive admonition which
Sir George gave to an old man who was convicted at the quarter sessions of
having a bit of string in his pocket, and therefore strongly suspected of
a design of a malicious nature against the game.

"John Carter," said the worthy baronet, "let me address to you a few
words on the sin of poaching. Poaching, John Carter--is--is a sin of which
too many are guilty, owing to the lenity of our most excellent laws. I
think that if everybody thought, as I think, of the moral heinousness of
this offence, nobody would be guilty of it. Poaching is not yet made
felony; but there is no saying how soon it may be made so, if the crime be
persisted in. It is a moral offence of the greatest enormity, and is one
of those crying, national sins, which may one day or other bring down the
vengeance of heaven on our guilty country. Now, John Carter, if you go to
gaol for six months, I hope the tread-mill and the chaplain will work a
thorough reformation in your morals."

Of course the contact of Sir George with such a man as Kipperson, affords
great merriment: _ex. gr._ part of a dinner scene at Neverden Hall:--

Now Peter was a very literary man, who thought there was nothing worth
living for but science and literature; and having somewhere read that it
was impossible to take shelter in a shower of rain with such a man as
Burke, without discovering him to be a man of genius, Peter was desirous
of continually showing off, and was instant in season and out of season.
Therefore when sitting at the table of the worthy baronet, he assailed the
magistrate with various scientific subjects, but all to no purpose; there
was no response from his worthy host. Endeavouring to adapt himself to the
moderate talents and circumscribed