32 REMINISCENCES OF 



of a flying twenty minutes from Barkby, or a scream- 

 ing burst from Ranksborough/ when ' writing after 

 dinner,' excites our unfeigned compassion. As we 

 read on, the question grew upon us, ' could no kind 

 friend — a wife, for instance, especially if the lady 

 has any literary qualifications — have persuaded this 

 dyspeptic penman to have taken a blue pill and gone 

 to bed, instead of labouring through so bilious a pro- 

 duction ? ' The only complaint about Leicestershire 

 is that the writer has been hustled by second horse- 

 men, who knocked over, he declares, sundry naval 

 and military captains, while breaking, we suppose, 

 or breaking down their masters' horses. They are 

 not, poor fellows, the only beggars to be found on 

 horseback ; but we cannot boast of such experience 

 of their ways and manners across country as the 

 penman of Land and Watej'. He seems un- 

 popular among his companions, for he proclaims, 

 with indignation, that they let the gates slam in his 

 face. 



" The indigestion, from which our subject was 

 evidently suffering, must have reached its climax 

 while he was inditing his notice of Northampton- 

 shire. The county has sinned, in his opinion, whose 

 farmers — and farmers only, with few exceptions — 

 Land and Water believes (a great mistake) have 

 ventured to dine together for the purpose of pre- 

 senting Mr. Anstruther Thomson with a portrait 

 of himself, painted by Sir Francis Grant ; and this, 

 just when Land and Water was beginning to 

 sicken. He must have gone to the dinner, in the 



