There was one however of Mrs Greendale’s party against whom no charge of indifference to literature or science could be justly brought. It was Peter Kipperson, Esq. This gentleman, though in middle life, had not abated aught of his zeal for learning. He was a man of very great intellectual ambition. His views were not confined to any one branch of literature, or directed exclusively to any one science. As an agriculturist he certainly took the lead in his county; and being, as it was currently reported, “a capital scholar,” he was the composer or compiler of all resolutions and petitions touching the interest of corn-growers. His opinion was asked, and his expressions quoted as authority on all matters connected with land, or stock, or grain. If any ingenious mechanic had constructed or invented any new machine, the invention was worth nothing till it had the sanction and patronage of Mr Kipperson. But he was not a mere farmer: he was also a man of letters. He had one of the largest libraries in the neighbourhood; besides which he was a subscriber to a public library in the metropolis, from whence he had all the new publications as soon as they came out. He had read far more than Mr Darnley or Dr Greendale: the former of whom he called a high priest, and the latter a mere pedant. On the great men of the two villages, Lord Smatterton of Smatterton, and Sir George Aimwell of Neverden, he looked down with great contempt as very ignorant men; and though Lord Spoonbill had been at Cambridge, Mr Kipperson was quite sure, from the obsolete constitution of the universities, that nothing could be taught there that was worth knowing. He therefore thought Lord Spoonbill a very superficial and ignorant man. To the pursuits of literature Peter Kipperson added a profound love of science. The plain farmers, when they called upon this genius, were astonished at the very knowing aspect which his library wore; seeing, that besides the numerous volumes of elegantly bound books, which were ranged on shelves surmounted with busts of Milton, Shakspeare, Cicero, &c. &c., there were globes, maps, electrical machines, telescopes, air-pumps, casts of skulls, chemical apparatus, and countless models of machines of every description, from steam-engines down to mole-traps. The glories of Peter are yet untold. Wearied as our readers may be with the monotony of panegyric, they must, if they continue to be our readers, undergo yet more, and be told, that Mr Kipperson was a great judge of music. He could play on the flute and on the pianoforte; but he thought nothing of his performance compared with his judgment. He had once at the opera witnessed the performance of Don Giovanni, and from that moment became a critic. Furthermore, Peter was a perfect gentleman, and, to crown all, a man of patriotic principles;--though it has been whispered that his politics were conveniently adapted to those of the Earl of Smatterton and Sir George Aimwell. It does sometimes happen,