Page:Headlong Hall - Peacock (1816).djvu/12

 and accordingly adopted the name Headlong, the appropriate epithet of waterfall.

The present representative of this ancient and dignified house, Harry Headlong, Esquire, was, like all other Welch squires, fond of shooting, hunting, racing, drinking, and other such innocent amusements,, as Menander expresses it. But, unlike other Welch squires, he had actually suffered certain phenomena, called books, to find their way into his house; and by dint of lounging over them after dinner, on those occasions when he was compelled to take his bottle alone, he became seized with a violent passion to be thought a philosopher and man of taste; and accordingly set off on an expedition to Oxford, to inquire for other varieties of the same genera,