or that he never married. It is fortunate he did not, for Venus herself, we fancy, could not have kept him by her side. His amours were notorious, and some of his mistresses were rare specimens of rustic beauty. Two daring spirits who followed the hounds were regular Dianas in their way, and he spent much of his time in the rural little cottages of these and others which were dotted over the estate at no great distance from the Hall. As rare Ben Jonson has it:— “When some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man that it doth draw All his effects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluction all to run one way, This may be truly said to be a humour.” Such a humour the old Squire had. Towards the last he found that some of his mistresses gave him a good deal of trouble; for in carrying out his desire to leave them comfortably provided for, his best intentions created jealousy, and he found it difficult to adjust their claims as regarded matters of income, Phœbe Higgs, who survived the Squire many years, and lived in a cottage with land attached, on the Willey side of the Shirlot, being the most clamorous. She set out one night with the intention of shooting the Squire, but was unnerved by her favourite monkey, who had stealthily gone on before, and jumped unobserved on her shoulder as she opened a gate. On another occasion she succeeded in surprising the Squire by forcing her way into his room and pointing a loaded pistol at him across the table, vowing she would shoot him unless he promised to make the sum left for her maintenance equal to that of Miss Cal—t. He had his children educated; they frequently visited at the Hall, and some married well. He speaks of them as his children and grandchildren in his letters, and manifested the greatest anxiety that everything should be done that could be done, by provisions in his will for those he was about to leave behind him. Indeed the same characteristics which gave a colouring to his life distinguished him to the last; and if the old fires burnt less brightly, the same inner sense and outward manifestations were evident in all he did. One thing which troubled him was the chancel of Barrow Church, as will be seen by the following characteristic letter to his agent, Mr. Pritchard, asking him to procure a legal opinion about certain encroachments upon what he conceived to be his rights, and those of the parishioners:— “DEAR SIR,—