The gentlemen in question were Lord Anophel Achthar, with his two parasites, Mr. Feathernest and the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub; Harum O’Scarum, Esquire, the sole proprietor of a vast tract of undrained bog in the county of Kerry; and Mr. Derrydown, the only son of an old lady in London, who having in vain solicited a visit from Anthelia, had sent off her hopeful progeny to try his fortune in Westmoreland. Mr. Derrydown had received a laborious education, and had consumed a great quantity of midnight oil over ponderous tomes of ancient and modern learning, particularly of moral, political, and metaphysical philosophy, ancient and modern. His lucubrations in the latter branch of science having conducted him, as he conceived, into the central opacity of utter darkness, he formed a hasty conclusion ‘that all human learning is vanity’; and one day, in a listless mood, taking down a volume of the _Reliques of Ancient Poetry_, he found, or fancied he found, in the plain language of the old English ballad, glimpses of the truth of things, which he had vainly sought in the vast volumes of philosophical disquisition. In consequence of this luminous discovery, he locked up his library, purchased a travelling chariot, with a shelf in the back, which he filled with collections of ballads and popular songs; and passed the greater part of every year in posting about the country, for the purpose, as he expressed it, of studying together poetry and the peasantry, unsophisticated nature and the truth of things. Mr. Hippy introduced Lord Anophel, and his two learned friends, to Sir Telegraph and Mrs. and Miss Pinmoney. Mr. Feathernest whispered to the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, ‘This Sir Telegraph Paxarett has some good livings in his gift’; which bent the plump figure of the reverend gentleman into a very orthodox right angle. Anthelia, who felt no inclination to show particular favour to any one of her Strephons, was not sorry to escape the evil of a solitary persecutor, more especially as they so far resembled the suitors of Penelope, as to eat and drink together with great cordiality. She could have wished, when she left them to the congenial society of Bacchus, to have retired to company more congenial to her than that of Mrs. Pinmoney and Miss Danaretta; but she submitted to the course of necessity with the best possible grace. She explicitly made known to all her suitors her ideas on the subject of marriage. She had never perverted the simplicity of her mind by indulging in the usual cant of young ladies, that she should prefer a single life: but she assured them that the spirit of the age of chivalry, manifested in the forms of modern life, would constitute the only character on which she could fix her affections. Lord Anophel was puzzled, and applied for information to his tutor. ‘Grovelgrub,’ said he, ‘what is the spirit of the age of chivalry?’ ‘Really, my lord,’ said the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub, ‘my studies never lay that way.’