And then there was Abraham Lowe, queer, quaint, odd, original, eccentric, funny, unequalled Abraham Lowe, the huntsman to the pack. How well we recollect him! When we were a boy in buttons, that dress which ladies’ pages now usurp and monopolise, we had a taste for haunting and strolling about in the quiet lanes in the neighbourhood of Childwall. We used to fish in some of the pits in that quarter, that is, we threw in our line and hook, and watched them by the hour. But the result was always, like a bad banker’s account, “No effects.” Probably there were no fish in our favourite ponds. We have often thought so since. But “hark back” to Abraham Lowe! How we did reverence and respect him! And how we would listen to his peculiar stories, told in his own peculiar way! We liked and honoured everything at Childwall. We had a strong regard for that fine old fellow, Mr. Clarke, of Stand-house. We rather looked up to the vicar, Mr. Sharpe. We stood in some sort of awe of Bamber Gascoigne, of the Hall, with his proud and grave bearing. It was our pleasure to watch the members of the Childwall Club, at their afternoon sports, with bow and arrow. It was our delight, when our pockets could afford it, to devour the exquisite pies which they made at the inn near the church. But the vicar and the squire, Mr. Clarke, the club, and even the pies, all paled into nothingness when compared with Abraham Lowe. We used to wonder whether Nelson and Julius Cæsar could be at all like him. His horse always seemed to be the best horse in the world, and his whip the nicest whip, a little greasy or so, but that looked knowing. And with what especial reverence his hounds regarded him! They seemed to know and feel that there was but one Abraham Lowe in the world, and that he was their huntsman, and that they were his hounds. And how he would top the fences and gates! Nothing could stop him! And what a voice he had when he shouted “Tally ho!” or gave the “Hark!” when a hare was up before the dogs. And who so acquainted with every art, and trick, and dodge of his craft! How he always hit upon the right spot for affording the best sport! And who like him for recovering a lost, or keeping the hounds up to a cold, scent? Poor Abraham Lowe! It seems but yesterday that he stood before us with his tall, wiry figure; all sinew and bone, not a superfluous ounce of flesh about him. What a treasure of a character he would have been to Scott, or Dickens, or Thackeray! Reality is more wonderful than fiction. These word-painters never delineated anything equal to Abraham Lowe. Poor Abraham! he was run to earth himself at last, and we fear that, in his declining years, the world did not smile upon him as it did at first. Long after the time of which we have been speaking, we have seen him occasionally creeping about the streets of Liverpool with his limbs stiffer than they were of yore, his old