368 
MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HOWITT. 
possession. To his great consternation and chagrin, however, instead of finding 
the lady dead, he found her very much alive indeed, and ready to receive him 
with a most emphatic announcement, that she had followed the example of his 
father-in-law, and had struck him out of her will altogether. She faithfully 
kept her word, and in the time of Mr. Howitt’s grandfather the whole of the 
family property (except what was in the possession of some younger branches) 
was consumed, or had passed into other hands. The only legacy which this 
spendthrift left was his great two-handled breakfast-pot, out of which he con¬ 
sumed every morning as much toast and ale as would have become a baron of 
the fourteenth century. 
This old gentleman seems to have been not only of a most reckless, but also of 
an unresentful disposition. He appears to have continued a familiar intercourse 
with the gentleman who superseded him in the Chilwell estate, and Mr. Charlton 
likewise maintained towards him a conduct that was very honorable. The 
disinherited squire was one of the true Squire- Western school, and spent the 
remainder of his life in a manner particularly characteristic of the times. He 
and another dilapidated old gentleman of the name of Johnson, used to proceed 
from house to house amongst their friends, till probably they had scarcely a home 
of their own, carousing and drinking “jolly good ale and old.” They sojourned 
at Chilwell, regularly going out with the greyhounds in the morning, or if it were 
Summer a-fishing, and carousing in the evenings, till one day the butler gave 
them the hint, by announcing that “ the barrel was out.” On this they proceeded 
to Lord Middleton’s, at Wollerton, and after a similar career and a similar 
carousing, to the house of a gentleman in Lincolnshire. The building of Wollerton 
Hall, it is said, had considerably impoverished the Middleton family ; but Lord 
Middleton was unmarried; and as the Lincolnshire gentleman had an only 
daughter and a splendid fortune, family tradition says, that by extolling the 
parties to each other a match was brought about by these old gentlemen, much 
to the satisfaction of both sides; and they were made free of the cellar and the 
greyhounds for the remainder of their lives. 
The son of this spendthrift, instead of being possessor of Chilwell, became a 
manager of a part of the estate for the fortunate proprietor. There was, how¬ 
ever, a friendly feeling always kept up between the Charltons and the Howitts, 
and by this means the father of our author—who was a man of a different stamp 
from his progenitors—was enabled, in some degree, to restore the fortunes of the 
family, and established a handsome property. Miss Tantum, whom he married, 
was a member of the Society of Friends, as her ancestors had been from the 
commencement of the Society, and Mr. Thomas Howitt, previous to his marriage, 
as was required by the rules of the Friends, entered the Society, and has always 
