This Lord Huntingtower was the eldest son of the late Earl of Dysart, and a well-matched companion of the late Marquis of Waterford. Roaming the country-side on dark nights, mounted on stilts, with sheets over their clothes and hollowed turnips on their heads with scooped-out holes for eyes and mouth, and lit with candles, they frightened many a timid rustic out of his dull wits. In daytime they played practical jokes on the tradesfolk of Andover. For example, entering a little general shop in the town, Lord Huntingtower asked for a pound of treacle. ‘Where shall I put it?’ asked the old woman who kept the shop, seeing that the usual basin was not forthcoming. ‘P-pup-pup-put it in my hat,’ said my Lord, who stuttered in yard-lengths, holding out his ‘topper.’ The pound of treacle was accordingly poured into the Lincoln and Bennett, and the next instant it was on the shopkeeper’s head. This was the manner in which Lord Huntingtower endeared himself to the people--those, that is to say, who were not the victims of his pleasantries. That kind of person is quite extinct now. They should have (but unfortunately they have not) a stuffed specimen in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington; because he is numbered with the Dodo, the Plesiosaurus, and the Mastodon. The Marquis of Winchester who flourished at the same period as my Lords Huntingtower and Waterford was of the same stamp. He had the fiery Port Countenance which was the sign of the three-bottle man, and his life and the deeds that he did are still fondly remembered at Andover, for his country-house was at Amport, in the immediate neighbourhood. He was the Premier Marquis of England, and although up to his neck in mortgages and writs, an extremely Great Personage. Let us, therefore, take our hats off as humbly as we know how to do. When he was at his country-place he worshipped at the little village church of Amport. Sometimes he did not worship, but slept, lulled off to the Land of Nod by the roaring fire he kept in his room-like pew. On one occasion it chanced that he was wide awake, and, like the illustrious Sir Roger de Coverley, leant upon the door of that pew, and gazed around to satisfy himself that all his tenantry were present. Then an awful thing happened, the hinges of the door broke, and it fell with a great clatter to the ground, and the Marquis with it. He said ‘Damn!’ with great fervour and unction, and everybody laughed. No one thought it--as they should have done--shocking, which shows the depravity of the age. [Sidenote: _THE MARQUIS AND THE SQUIRE_] There is no doubt whatever about that depravity, which, like the worm in the bud, has wrought ruin among our manners since then. How sad it is that we are not now content to call upon Providence to Bless the squire and his relations And keep us in our proper stations;