Headlong Hall Author:Thomas Love Peacock Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAP. III. THE ARRIVALS. In the midst of that scene of confusion thrice confounded, in which we left the inhabitants of Headlong Hall, arrived the lovely C... more »aprio- letta Headlong, the Squire's sister (whom he had sent for, from the residence of her maiden aunt at Caernarvon, to do the honours of his house), beaming like light on chaos, to arrange disorder and harmonize discord. The tempestuous spirit of her brother became instantaneously as smooth as the surface of the lake of Llanberris; and the little fat butler " plessed Cot, and St. Tafit, and the peauti- ful tamsel," for being permitted to move about the house in his natural pace. In less than twenty-four hours after her arrival, every thing was disposed in its proper station, andthe squire began to be all impatience for the appearance of his promised guests. The first visitor with whom he had the felicity of shaking hands was Marraaduke Milestone, Esquire, who arrived with a portfolio under his arm. Mr. Milestone was apicturesque landscape gardener of the first celebrity, who was not without hopes of persuading Squire Headlong to put his romantic pleasure-grounds under a process of improvement, promising himself a signal triumph for his incomparable art in the difficult, and, therefore, glorious achievement of polishing and trimming the rocks of Llanberris. . r Mr. Knight, in a note to the Landscape, having taken the liberty of laughing at a notable device of a celebrated improver, for giving greatness of character to a place, and showing an undivided extent of property, by placing the family arms on the neighbouring milestones, the improver retorted on him with a charge of misquotation, misrepresentation, and malice prepense. Mr. Knight, in the preface to the second edition of his poem, quotes the improver's wor...« less