thus broken, the colloquy rambled to other topics, in the course
of which it appeared, to the surprise of every one, that all four,
though perfect strangers to each other, were actually bound to the
same point, namely, Headlong Hall, the seat of the ancient and
honourable family of the Headlongs, of the vale of Llanberris, in
Caernarvonshire. This name may appear at first sight not to be truly
Cambrian, like those of the Rices, and Prices, and Morgans, and Owens,
and Williamses, and Evanses, and Parrys, and Joneses; but,
nevertheless, the Headlongs claim to be not less genuine derivatives
from the antique branch of Cadwallader than any of the last named
multiramified families. They claim, indeed, by one account, superior
antiquity to all of them, and even to Cadwallader himself, a tradition
having been handed down in Headlong Hall for some few thousand years,
that the founder of the family was preserved in the deluge on the
summit of Snowdon, and took the name of Rhaiader, which signifies a
_waterfall_, in consequence of his having accompanied the water in its
descent or diminution, till he found himself comfortably seated on the
rocks of Llanberris. But, in later days, when commercial bagmen began
to scour the country, the ambiguity of the sound induced his
descendants to drop the suspicious denomination of _Riders_, and
translate the word into English; when, not being well pleased with the
sound of the _thing_, they substituted that of the _quality_, and
accordingly adopted the name _Headlong_, the appropriate epithet of
waterfall.

I cannot tell how the truth may be:
I say the tale as 'twas said to me.

The present representative of this ancient and dignified house, Harry
Headlong, Esquire, was, like all other Welsh squires, fond of
shooting, hunting, racing, drinking, and other such innocent
amusements, _meizonos d' allou tinos_, as Menander expresses it. But,
unlike other Welsh 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 a man of taste; and
accordingly set off on an expedition to Oxford, to inquire for other
varieties of the same genera, namely, men of taste and philosophers;
but, being assured by a learned professor that there were no such
things in the Universi