46 The PytcJiley Hunt, Past and Present, [chap. h. 



address tlie great "unwashed^' in the County Hal], or 

 from the balcony of the George Hotel at Northamp- 

 ton, were generally provocative of mach amusement. 

 Unable to remember what he wished to say without the 

 assistance of notes, his thoughts seemed to be evolved 

 from the depths of his hat rather than from his own 

 consciousness, a mode not at all times successful ; for 

 either from not being clearly written, or from not being 

 held at an angle suiting the vision, the " hatograph '^ 

 occasionally refused to yield up its written treasures 

 without some coaxing and manipulation. This excited 

 the mirth of the "paid unruly" attached to the oppo- 

 sition, and gave rise to cries of, " Put on your hat, 

 Charley;'"' " What 'a you got a-looking at inside of that 

 hat ? '' and other irreverent remarks begotten of beer 

 and bribery and electioneering manners. It was not 

 until he had ceased, and his eloquent " Fidus Achates," 

 the Eeverend Francis Litchfield, the well-known rector 

 of Farthinghoe, had taken up " the running," that the 

 mob fairly settled down into quietude. To the glib and 

 energetic utterances of this bulwark of the Tory faith, 

 all were content to listen. 



A parliamentarian of the higher class thrown away, 

 the oratorical gifts of the Farthinghoe parson were of no 

 common order, and an ardent social though not political 

 reformer, his eloquent philippics, delivered before his 

 brother magistrates at Quarter Sessions against what he 

 termed the " drink-shops," would have sent Sir Wilfrid 

 Lawson into a frenzy of delight. Not a member of 

 the House of Commons possessed a more marked indivi- 

 duality of dress and address than Sir Charles Knightley ; 

 and though he rarely trusted himself to "give tongue" 



