THOMAS ANDREW KNIGHT, ESQ. 65 



turists of all grades ; and, as he never withheld information or 

 assistance from the most humble of his applicants, his time was 

 much occupied in answering letters, and in sending off packages 

 of plants, &c. of the new varieties of fruits and vegetables he 

 had raised, which he distributed with an unsparing hand ; still 

 from the time the new poor laws came into operation, notwith- 

 standing his advanced age and his numerous avocations, he 

 took an active part in their administration ; and no cause but 

 indisposition ever prevented his attending the weekly meetings 

 of the board of guardians at Ludlow ; for he considered that 

 the benefits to be derived from this law would be materially 

 diminished, if not annihilated, unless the country gentlemen 

 lent their assistance in enforcing the proper fulfilment of its 

 provisions. 



Another subject in which he latterly took much interest was 

 the commutation of tithes ; and in 1834 he published a 

 pamphlet, suggesting the adoption of meat as the basis on 

 which to found the calculations of the value of tithes, instead of 

 corn. 



Though early in life Mr. Knight had been considered deli- 

 cate, he had, for a long course of years, enjoyed almost unin- 

 terrupted good health, which his mode of life was well calculated 

 to confirm : he spent many hours of every day in the open air, 

 in his garden, or in walking about his estate : he had always 

 been remarkable for his abstemious habits ; he rarely tasted 

 wine or any fermented liquor, and ate little animal food ; which 

 it is to be feared he persevered in to an injurious extent, for, 

 when the powers of the stomach became diminished by the 

 decay incidental to old age, a more generous diet would pro- 

 bably have had a beneficial effect on his constitution. For the 

 last three years of his life, occasional symptoms of dyspepsia 

 appeared, and, during the winter of 1 837-8, he suffered a good 

 deal from derangement of the digestive organs, which at times 

 produced a very distressing sense of suffocation. He had a 



