MEN OF LETTERS.

Floral design

Monk Lewis.

"Hail! wonder-working Lewis."

THISearly lover of rhymes and numbers, and "flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar," was, in his boyhood, more remarkable for his loveof theatrical exhibitions than for his love of learning. He read books on Witchcraft when a child, and published his marvellous story of theMonkwhen in his twenty-second year; it contains his best poetry as well as prose. In the midst of this celebrity, being one autumn on his way to a fashionable watering-place, he stayed a night in a country-town and witnessed a performance by a company of strolling players. Among them was a young actress, whose benefit was on thetapis, and who, hearing of the arrival of a person so talked of as Monk Lewis, waited upon him at the inn to request the very trifling favour of an original piece from his pen. The lady pleaded in terms that urged the spirit of benevolence to advocate her cause in a heart never closed to such an appeal. Lewis had by him at that time an unpublished trifle, calledThe Hindoo Bride, in which a widow was immolated on the funeral pile of her husband. The subject was one well suited to attract a country audience, and he determined thus to appropriate the drama. The delighted suppliant departed all joy and gratitude at being requested to call for the manuscript the next day. Lewis, however, soon discovered that he had been reckoning without his host, for, on searching his travelling-desk, which contained many of his papers, theBridewas nowhere to be found, having, in fact, been left behind in town. Exceedingly annoyed by this circumstance, which there was no time to remedy, the dramatist took a pondering stroll in the rural environs, when a sudden shower compelled him to take refuge in a huckster's shop, where he overheard, in the adjoining apartment, two voices in earnest conversation, and in one of them recognized that of his theatrical petitioner of the morning, apparently replying to the feeble tones of age and infirmity. "There now, mother, always that old story—when I've brought such good news, too—after I've had the face to call on Mr. Monk Lewis, and found him so different to what I expected; so good-humoured, so affable, and willing toassist me. I did not say a word about you, mother; for though in some respects it might have done good, I thought it would seem like a begging affair, so I merely represented my late ill-success, and he promised to give me an original drama which he had with him for my benefit. I hope he did not think me too bold." "I hope not, Jane," replied the feeble voice; "only don't do these things again without consulting me; for you don't know the world, and it may be thought——" The sun then just gave a broad hint that the shower had ceased, and the sympathizing author returned to his inn, and having penned the following letter, ordered post-horses and despatched a porter to the young actress with this epistle:—

"Madame,—I am truly sorry to acquaint you that my Hindoo Bride has behaved most improperly—in fact, whether the lady has eloped or not, it seems she does not choose to make her appearance either foryour benefitor mine; and to say the truth, I don't at this moment know where to find her. I take the liberty to jest upon the subject, because I really do not think you will have any cause to regret her non-appearance; having had an opportunity of witnessing your very admirable performance of a far superior character, in a style true to nature, and which reflects upon you the highest credit. I allude to a most interesting scene in which you lately sustained the character of 'The Daughter.' Brides of all denominations but too often prove their empire delusive; but the characteryouhave chosen will improve upon every representation, both in the estimation of the public and the satisfaction of your own excellent heart. For the infinite gratification I have received, I must long consider myself in your debt. Trusting you will permit the enclosed (fifty pounds) in some measure to discharge the same, I remain, Madame (with sentiments of respect and admiration), your sincere well-wisher,"

"M. G. Lewis."

Lewis, it should be explained, was well supplied withmoney, his father holding a lucrative post in the War Office, and being owner of extensive West Indian possessions. In 1798, Scott (afterwards Sir Walter) met young Lewis in Edinburgh, and so humble were then his own aspirations, and so brilliant the reputation ofThe Monk, that he declared, thirty years afterwards, he never felt so elated as when Lewis asked him to dine with him at his hotel. Lewis schooled the great poet on his incorrect rhyme, and proved himself, as Scott says, "a martinet in the accuracy of rhymes and numbers." Sir Walter has recorded that Lewis was fonder of great people than he ought to have been, either as a man of talent or a man of fashion. "He had always," he says, "dukes or duchesses in his mouth, and was pathetically fond of any one who had a title; you would have sworn he had been aparvenuof yesterday; yet he had lived all his life in good society." And Scott regarded Lewis with no small affection.

Of this weakness, Lord Byron relates an amusing instance: "Lewis, at Oatlands, was observed one morning to have his eyes red and his air sentimental; being asked why, he replied, that when people said anything kind to him, it affected him deeply, 'and just now, the Duchess (of York) has said something so kind to me, that—' here tears began to flow. 'Never mind, Lewis,' said Colonel Armstrong to him, 'never mind—don't cry—she could not mean it!'"

Lewis was of extremely diminutive stature. "I remember a picture of him," says Scott, "by Saunders, being handed round at Dalkeith House. The artist had ingeniously flung a dark folding mantle around his form, under which was half hid a dagger, a dark-lantern, or some such cut-throat appurtenance. With all this the features were preserved and ennobled. It passed from hand to hand into that of Henry, Duke of Buccleuch, who, hearing the general voice affirm that it was very like, said aloud,'Like Mat. Lewis! why, that picture's likea man!' He looked, and lo! Mat. Lewis was at his elbow. This boyishness went through life with him. He was a child, and a spoiled child—but a child of high imagination, and he wasted himself on ghost-stories and German romances. He had the finest ear for the rhythm of verse I ever met with—finer than Byron's."

The death of Lewis's father made the poet a man of independent fortune. He succeeded to considerable plantations in the West Indies, besides a large sum of money; and in order to ascertain personally the condition of the slaves on his estate, he sailed for the West Indies in 1815. Of this voyage he wrote a narrative, which was published many years after, under the title of theJournal of a West India Proprietor. The manner in which the negroes received him on his arrival amongst them, he thus describes:—"As soon as the carriage entered my gates, the uproar and confusion which ensued sets all description at defiance; the works were instantly all abandoned, everything that had life came flocking to the house from all quarters, and not only the men, and the women, and the children, but 'by a bland assimilation,' the hogs, and the dogs, and the geese, and the fowls, and the turkeys, all came hurrying along by instinct, to see what could possibly be the matter, and seemed to be afraid of arriving too late. Whether the pleasure of the negroes was sincere may be doubted, but certainly it was the loudest that I ever witnessed. They all talked together, sang, danced, shouted, and in the violence of their gesticulations, tumbled over each other and rolled about on the ground. Twenty voices at once inquired after uncles and aunts, and grandfathers and great-grandmothers of mine, who had been buried long before I was in existence, and whom, I verily believe, most of them knew only by tradition. One woman held up her little naked black child to me, grinning from ear to ear: 'Look,massa! look here! him nice lily neger for massa!' Another complained—'So long since come see we, massa; good massa come at last.' As for the old people, they were all in one and the same story; now they had lived once to see massa, they were ready for dying to-morrow—'them no care.'

"The shouts, the gaiety, the wild laughter, their strange and sudden bursts of singing and dancing, and several old women wrapped up in large cloaks, their heads bound round with different-coloured handkerchiefs, leaning on a staff, and standing motionless in the middle of the hubbub, with their eyes fixed upon the portico which I occupied, formed an exact counterpart of the festivity of the witches in Macbeth. Nothing could be more odd or more novel than the whole scene; yet there was something in it truly affecting."

In his Journal, Lewis tells us the following odd shark story:—"While lying in Black River Harbour, Jamaica, two sharks were frequently seen playing about the ship. At length, the female was killed, and the desolation of the male was excessive. What he did without her remains a secret, but what he did with her was clear enough; for scarce was the breath out of his Eurydice's body, when he stuck his teeth in her, and began to eat her up with all possible expedition. Even the sailors felt their sensibility excited by so peculiar a mark of posthumous attachment; and to enable him to perform this melancholy duty more easily, they offered to be his carvers, lowered their boat, and proceeded to chop his better half in pieces with their hatchets; while the widower opened his jaws as wide as possible, and gulped down pounds upon pounds of the dear departed, as fast as they were thrown to him, with the greatest delight, and all the avidity imaginable. I make no doubt that all the time he was eating, he was thoroughly persuaded that every morsel that went into his stomach would make its way to his heart directly! 'She was perfectly consistent,' he said to himself; 'she was excellent through life, and really she's extremely good now she's dead!' And then,

"'Unable to conceal his pain,He sigh'd and swallow'd, and sigh'd and swallow'd,And sigh'd and swallow'd again.'

"I doubt whether the annals of Hymen can produce a similar instance of post-obitual affection. Nor do I recollect any fact at all resembling it, except, perhaps, a circumstance which is recorded respecting Cambletes, king of Lydia, a monarch equally remarkable for his voracity and uxoriousness, and who ate up his queen without being conscious of it."

Lewis, in readingDon Quixote, was greatly pleased with this instance of the hero's politeness. The Princess Micomicona having fallen into a most egregious blunder, he never so much as hints a suspicion of her not having acted precisely as she had stated, but only begs to know her reason for taking a step so extraordinary. "But pray, madam," says he, "why did your ladyship land at Ossima, seeing that it is not a seaport town?"

One of Lewis's great hits was the ballad ofCrazy Jane, which was found in the handwriting of the author among his papers. The ballad was wedded to music by several composers; but the original and most popular melody was by Miss Abrams, who sung it herself at fashionable parties. After the usual complimentary tributes from barrel-organs, and wandering damsels of every degree of vocal ability, it crowned not only the author's brow with laurels, but also that of many a youthful beauty in the shape of aCrazy Jane hat.

The Castle Spectrewas Lewis's greatest dramatic success. Its terrors were not confined to Drury Lane Theatre, but, as the following anecdote shows, on one occasion they even extended considerably beyond it. Mrs. Powell, who played Evelina, having become, from the number of representations, heartily tired and wearied with the character, one evening, on returning from the theatre, walked listlessly into a drawing room, and throwing herself into a seat, exclaimed, "Oh!this ghost! this ghost! Heavens! how this ghost torments me!"

"Ma'am!" uttered a tremulous voice from the other side of the table.

Mrs. Powell looked up hastily. "Sir!" she reiterated in nearly the same tone, as she encountered the pale countenance of a very sober-looking gentleman opposite.

"What? What was it you said madam?"

"Really, sir," replied the astonished actress, "I have not the pleasure of—Why, good heavens, what have they been about in the room?"

"Madam," continued the gentleman, "the room is mine, and I will thank you to explain—"

"Yours!" screamed Mrs. Powell; "surely, sir, this is Number 1?"

"No, indeed, madam," he replied; "this is Number 2; and really, your language is so very extraordinary, that—"

Mrs. Powell, amidst her confusion, could scarcely refrain from laughter. "Ten thousand pardons!" she said, "the coachman must have mistaken the house. I am Mrs. Powell, of Drury Lane, and have just come from performing theCastle Spectre. Fatigue and absence of mind have made me an unconscious intruder. I lodge next door, and I hope you will excuse the unintentional alarm I have occasioned you."

It is almost needless to add, that the gentleman was much relieved by this rational explanation, and participated in the mirth of his nocturnal visitor, as he politely escorted her to the street door. "Good night," said the still laughing actress; "and I hope, sir, in future, I shall pay more attention toNumber One!"

Professor Porson.

The humour of Professor Porson lay in parodies, imitations, and hoaxes, ready wit and repartee; in his oddities of dress and demeanour; and his disregard for certain decencies of society is very deplorable, though at the same time mirthful in its very extravagances. Porson left Cambridge to become the scholar about town; to quench his thirst for Florentine MSS. in the tankards of the "Cider Cellar;" and to exchange the respectability and stateliness of the Trinity common room for the savage liberty of Temple chambers. He had for some time become notorious at Cambridge. His passion for smoking, which was then going out among the younger generation, his large and indiscriminate potations, and his occasional use of the poker with avery refractory controversialist, had caused his company to be shunned by all except the few to whom his wit and scholarship were irresistible. When the evening began to grow late, the Fellows of Trinity used to walk out of the common room, and leave Porson to himself, who was sometimes found smoking by the servants next morning, without having apparently moved from the spot where he had been left over-night.

Porson's imitations of Horace, which appeared in theMorning Chronicle, have really no merit at all, nor have any of the hundred and one epigrams which he is said to have written in one night upon the drunkenness of Mr. Pitt. But two other papers, one calledThe Swinish Multitude, and the otherThe Saltbox, display certainly both wit and humour. One is a satire upon the famous expression of Burke, in hisLetters on a Regicide Peace; the other, a parody of the Oxford style of examination in Logic and Metaphysics.

Of the hundred and one epigrams, the story goes—that when Pitt and Dundas appeared before the House, Pitt tried to speak, but showing himself unable, was kindly pulled down into his seat by those about him; Dundas who was equally unfitted for eloquence, had sense enough to sit silent. Perry, of theMorning Chronicle, witnessed the scene, and on his return from the House, gave a description of it to Porson, who, being vastly amused, called for pen and ink, and musing over his pipe and tankard, produced the one hundred and one pieces of verse before the day dawned. The point of most of them lies in puns. The first epigram is:

"ThatÇa Irain England will prevail,All sober men deny with heart and hand;To talk ofgoingsure's a pretty tale,When e'en our rulers can't as much as stand."

The following are better:—

"Your gentle brains with full libations drench,You've then Pitt's title to the Treasury Bench.Your foe in war to overrateA maxim is of ancient date;Then sure 'twas right, in time of trouble,That our good rulers should see double.The mob are beasts! exclaims the King of Daggers;What creature's he that's troubled with the staggers?""When Billy found he scarce could stand,'Help! help!' he cried, and stretched his handTo faithful Harry calling,Quoth Hal, 'My friend, I'm sorry for't;'Tis not my practice to supportA minister that's falling.'""'Who's up?' inquired Burke of a friend at the door;'Oh! no one,' says Paddy, 'though Pitt's on the floor.'"

"When Billy found he scarce could stand,'Help! help!' he cried, and stretched his handTo faithful Harry calling,Quoth Hal, 'My friend, I'm sorry for't;'Tis not my practice to supportA minister that's falling.'"

"'Who's up?' inquired Burke of a friend at the door;'Oh! no one,' says Paddy, 'though Pitt's on the floor.'"

Porson was not imposed upon for a moment by the Ireland forgeries of Shakspeare, and when asked to set his name to a declaration of belief in their genuineness, replied, with a smile, that he was "slow to subscribe articles of faith." Scholars, however, owe a debt of gratitude to Ireland, of which, perhaps, they are seldom conscious; for it was the alleged discovery of Shakspearian plays that drew from Porson one of the cleverest specimens of his peculiar powers that remain to us. We mean the translation of "Three Children sliding on the Ice," which he sent to theMorning Chronicle, as a fragment of Sophocles, recently discovered by a friend of his at the bottom of an old trunk.

Porson had high animal spirits; and he is said once, for a wager, to have carried a young lady round the room in his teeth. His conversation, however, after a certain period of the evening, was not always fit for ladies. Rogers once took him to a party, where several women of fashion were present, who were anxious to hear him talk. The Professor, who hated being made a lion, selected for his theme the soup of Vauxhall, and at last, we are told, talked so oddly, that all the women retreated except the famous Lady Crewe, who was not to be frightened by any man. "After this," saysRogers, "I brought him home as far as Piccadilly, where I am sorry to say I left him sick in the middle of the street."

At those houses where Porson was on intimate terms, it was understood that he was always to go away at eleven. Porson accepted the arrangement in perfect good faith, and invariably required that it should be carried out to the letter; for, "though he never attempted to exceed the hour limited, he would never stir before," and he warmly resented any attempt to make him. At one house only was his time extended to twelve; this was Bennet Langton's. There were, of course, houses in which the Professor, so to speak, took the bit between his teeth, and did exactly as he pleased. Horne Tooke's was one of these, as the following story illustrates. Tooke once asked Porson to dine with him in Richmond Buildings; and, as he knew that the Professorhad not been in bed for the three preceding nights, he expected to get rid of him at an early hour. He, however, kept Tooke up the whole night; and, in the morning, the latter, in perfect despair, said, "Mr. Porson, I am engaged to meet a friend at breakfast at a coffee-house in Leicester Square." "Oh," replied Porson, "I will go with you;" and he accordingly did so. Soon after they had reached the coffee-house, Tooke contrived to slip out, and running home, ordered his servant not to let Mr. Porson in even if he should attempt to batter down the door. "A man," observed Tooke, "who could sit up four nights successively, could sit up forty."

As soon as Porson had been "turned out of doors like a dog," which was his favourite expression when he received the slightest hint to move, even if it was one o'clock in the morning, he used generally to adjourn to the Cider Cellar, where he was completely king of his company. "Dick," said one of these companions, "can beat us all; he can drink all night, and spout all day." From the Cider Cellar he got home as he could to Essex Court, where he had chambers over the late Mr. Baron Gurney, whose slumberswere a good deal disturbed by the habits of his learned neighbour. On one occasion he was awakened by a tremendous thump upon the floor overhead. Porson, it turned out, had come home drunk, and had tumbled down in his room, and put out his candle; for Gurney soon after heard him fumbling at the staircase lamp, and cursing the nature of things, which made him see two flames instead of one.

The most remarkable feature in Porson's love of liquor was, that he could drink anything. Port wine, indeed, was his favourite beverage. But, in default of this, he would take whatever he could lay his hands on. He was known to swallow a bottle of spirits of wine, an embrocation, and when nothing better was forthcoming, he would even drench himself with water. He would sometimes take part in a contest of drinking; and once, having threatened after dinner to "kick and cuff" his host, Horne Tooke, the latter proposed to settle the affair by drinking, the weapons to be quarts of brandy. When the second bottle was half finished, Porson fell under the table. The conqueror drank another glass to the speedy recovery of his antagonist, and having given instructions to his servants to take great care of the Professor, walked upstairs to tea, as if nothing had occurred. Tooke, however, feared Porson in conversation, because he would often remain silent for a long time, and then "pounce upon him with his terrible memory." In 1798, Parr writes to Dr. Burney, who had recommended that Porson's opinion should be taken on some classical question, "Porson shall do it, and he will do it. I know his terms when he bargains with me: two bottles instead of one, six pipes instead of two, Burgundy instead of claret, liberty to sit till five in the morning instead of sneaking into bed at one; these are his terms."

Porson was very odd in his eating. At breakfast, he frequently ate bread and cheese: and he then took his porter as copiously as Johnson took his tea. At Eton, he once kept Mrs. Goodall at the breakfast-table during the whole of Sunday morning; and when Dr. Goodall returnedfrom church, he found the sixth pot of porter being just carried into his house. In his eating, Porson was very easily satisfied. "He went once," says Mr. Watson, "to the Bodleian to collate a manuscript, and, as the work would occupy him several days, Routh, the president of Magdalen, who was leaving home for the long vacation, said to him at his departure, 'Make my house your home, Mr. Porson, during my absence, for my servants have orders to be quite at your command, and to procure you whatever you please.' When he returned, he asked for the account of what the Professor had had during his stay. The servant brought the bill, and the Doctor, glancing at it, observed a fowl entered in it every day. 'What,' said he, 'did you provide for Mr. Porson no better than this, but oblige him to dine every day on fowl?' 'No, sir,' replied the servant; 'but we asked the gentleman the first day what he would have for dinner, and as he did not seem to know very well what to order, we suggested a fowl. When we went to him about dinner any day afterwards, he always said, "The same as yesterday:" and this was the only answer we could get from him.'"

Sometimes, in a fit of abstraction, he would go without a dinner. One day, when Rogers asked him to stay and dine, he replied, "Thank you, no; I dined yesterday."

Porson used to relate, with much glee, his school anecdotes, the tricks he used to play upon his master and schoolfellows, and the little dramatic pieces which he wrote for private representation. In describing his narrow means, he used to say, "I was almost then destitute in the wide world, with less than 40l.a year for my support, and without a profession; for I could never bring myself to subscribe Articles of Faith. I used often to lie awake for a whole night, and wish for a large pearl." He seemed to delight in company of low grade. At Cambridge, after sitting five hours, and drinking two bottles of sherry, he began to clip the king's English, to cry like a child at the close of hisperiods; and, in other respects, to show marks of extreme debility. At length, he rose from his chair, staggered to the door, and made his way downstairs without taking the slightest notice of his companion. Subsequently he went out upon a search for the Greek Professor, whom he discovered near the outskirts of Cambridge, leaning upon the arm of a dirty bargeman, and amusing him by the most humorous and laughable anecdotes.

However, Porson could place a strong restraint upon himself when necessary. When he went to stay with his sisters, in the year 1804, it is said that he only took two glasses of wine a day for eleven weeks.

Porson was a man of ready wit and repartee. When asked by a Scotch stranger at the Gray's Inn Coffee-house if Bentley were not a Scotchman, he replied, "No, sir, Bentley was a Greek scholar." He said Bishop Pearson would have been a first-rate critic if he hadn't muddled his brains with divinity. Dr. Parr once asked him, in his pompous manner, before a large company, what he thought about the introduction of moral and physical evil into the world. "Why, Doctor," said Porson, "I think we should have done very well without them."

On his academic visits to the Continent, Porson wrote:—

"I went to Frankfort, and got drunkWith that most learn'd Professor Brunck:I went to Worts, and got more drunken,With that more learn'd Professor Runcken."

Porson said one night, when he was very drunk, to Dodd, who was pressing him hard in argument, "Jemmy Dodd, I always despised you when sober, and I'll be d——d if I'll argue with you now that I am drunk."

Porson, in a social party, offered to make a rhyme on anything, when some one suggested one of the Latin gerunds, and he immediately replied:—

"When Dido found Æneas would not come,She mourned in silence, and wasDi-do-dum."

A gentleman said to the great "Grecian," with whom he had been disputing—"Dr. Porson, my opinion of you is most contemptible." "Sir," returned the Doctor, "I never knew an opinion of yours that was not contemptible."

Gillies, the historian of Greece, and Porson used now and then to meet. The consequence was certain to be a literary contest. Porson was much the deeper scholar of the two. Gillies was one day speaking to him of the Greek tragedies, and of Pindar's odes. "We know nothing," said Gillies, emphatically, "of the Greek metres." Porson answered, "If, Doctor, you will put your observation in thesingularnumber, I believe it will be very accurate."

Porson being once at a dinner-party where the conversation turned upon Captain Cook, and his celebrated voyages round the world, an ignorant person, in order to contribute his mite towards the social intercourse, asked him, "Pray, was Cook killed on his first voyage?" "I believe he was," answered Porson, "though he did not mind it much, but immediately entered on a second."

Porson said of a prospect shown to him, that it put him in mind of a fellowship—a long, dreary walk, with a church at the end of it. He used to say of Wakefield and Hermann, two critics, who had attacked him, but whose scholarship he held in great contempt, that "whatever he wrote in future should be written in such a manner that they should not reach it with their paws, though they stood on their hind-legs to get at it."

It has been well said that all opportunities of earning honourably pudding and praise availed Porson nothing. "Two Mordecais sat at his gate—thirst and procrastination."

Irony was Porson's chief weapon, though he could be sarcastic enough when he chose; as when he said of Tomline, Bishop of Lincoln, to whom a rich man, who had only seen him once, had left a large legacy, "If he had seen him twice he would have got nothing."

Nor was he more eulogistic of Bishop Porteus, whom he used to call BishopProteus, from his having changed his opinions from liberal to illiberal.

Porson made several visits to the British Museum to read and consider the Rosetta stone, whence he got from the officials thesobriquetof Judge Blackstone.

It is sufficiently notorious that Porson was not remarkably attentive to the decoration of his person: indeed, he was at times disagreeably negligent. On one occasion he went to visit a learned friend, afterwards a judge, where a gentleman who did not know Porson, was waiting in anxious and impatient expectation of the barber. On Porson's entering the library, where the gentleman was sitting, he started up and hastily said to him, "Are you the barber?" "No, sir," replied Porson; "but I am a cunning shaver, much at your service."

Porson, when a young man, was eminently handsome, and nearly six feet in height; but he cultivated these natural gifts very little, and was seldom dressed to advantage. William Bankes once invited Porson to dine with him at an hotel at the west-end of the town; but the dinner passed away without the guest making his appearance. Afterwards, on Bankes's asking him why he had not kept his engagement Porson replied (without entering into further particulars), that he "had come;" and Bankes could only conjecture that the waiters, seeing Porson's shabby dress, and not knowing who he was, had offered him some insult, which made him indignantly return home.

Late in life, Porson seems to have become a sad spectacle. "I saw him once at the London Institution," says a writer in theNew Monthly Magazine, "with a large patch of coarse brown paper on his nose, the skirts of his rusty black coat hung with cobwebs, and talking in a tone of suavity approaching to condescension to one of the managers." His face was described by an old acquaintance, who met him in 1807, as "fiery and volcanic; his nose,on which he had a perpetual efflorescence, was covered with black patches; his clothes were shabby, his linen dirty."

Porson had a great contempt for physic and physicians, yet, curiously enough, many of his most intimate friends were physicians. In a letter written in 1802 to Dr. Davy, he says: "I have been at Death's door, but by a due neglect of the faculty, and plentiful use of my old remedy (powder of post), I am pretty well recovered."

In the good old days of coach travelling, an inside was occupied by Porson, a young Oxonian, and two ladies. The Oxonian, fresh from college, was amusing the ladies with a variety of talk, and amongst other things, with a quotation from Sophocles. A Greek quotation, and in a coach too, roused the slumbering Professor; and thereupon, waking from a kind of dog sleep, in a snug corner of the vehicle; shaking his ears, and rubbing his eyes, "I think young gentleman," said he, "you favoured us just now with a quotation from Sophocles; I do not happen to recollect it there." "Oh, sir," replied the Oxonian, "the quotation is word for word as I have repeated it, and in Sophocles too; but I suspect, sir, it is some time since you were at college." The Professor applying his hand to his great-coat, and taking out a small pocket edition of Sophocles, quietly asked him if he could be kind enough to show him the passage in question, in that little book. After rummaging the pages for some time, he replied, "Upon second thoughts, I now recollect that the passage is in Euripides." "Then perhaps, sir," said the Professor, putting his hand again into his pocket, and handing him a similar edition of Euripides, "you will be so good as to find it for me, in that little book." The young Oxonian returned again to his task, but with no better success, muttering however to himself, "Curse me if ever I quote Greek again in a coach." The tittering of the ladies informed him that he was got into a hobble. At last, "Bless me, sir," said he, "how dull I am: I recollect now—yes, yes, I perfectly remember that the passage is in Æschylus." When our astonished freshmanvociferated, "Stop the coach—halloah, coachman, let me out, I say, instantly—let me out! there's a fellow here has got the Bodleian library in his pocket; let me out, I say—let me out; he must be Porson or the devil!"

He sometimes put the Greek folio of Galen, the physician, under his pillow at night; not, as he used to observe, because he expected medicinal virtue from it, but because his asthma required that his head should be kept high.

Dr. Parr.

In his boyhood, Parr is described, by his sister as studious after his kind, delighting in "Mother Goose andthe Seven Champions," and not partaking much in the sports usual at such an age. He had had a very early inclination for the Church, and the elements of that taste for ecclesiastical pomp which distinguished him in after-life, appeared when he was not more than nine or ten years old. He would put on one of his father's shirts for a surplice; he would then read the Church Service to his sister and cousins, after they had been duly summoned by a bell tied to the banisters; preach them a sermon, which his congregation was apt to think, in those days, somewhat of the longest; and, even in spite of his father's remonstrances, would bury a bird or a kitten (Parr had always a great fondness for animals) with the rites of Christian burial.

Samuel was his mother's darling; she indulged all his whims, consulted his appetite, provided hot suppers for him almost from his cradle. He was her only son, and was at this time very fair and well-favoured. Providence, however, seeing that at all events vanity was to be a large ingredient in Parr's composition, sent him, in its mercy, a fit of smallpox; and with the same intent, perhaps, deprived him of a parent who was killing her son's character by kindness. Parr never was a boy, says one of his friends and schoolfellows. When he was about nine years old, he was seen sitting on the churchyard-gate at Harrow, whilst his schoolfellows were all at play. "Sam, why don't you play with the others?" cried one. "Do not you know, sir," said Parr, with vast solemnity, "that I am to be a parson?" And Parr himself used to tell of Sir William Jones, another of his schoolfellows, that, as they were one day walking together near Harrow, Jones suddenly stopped short, and looking hard at him, cried out, "Parr, if you should have the good luck to live forty years, you may stand a chance of overtaking your face." Between Dr. Bennet, Parr, and Jones, the closest intimacy was formed: the three challenged one another to trials of skill in the imitation of popular authors—they wrote and acted a play together—they got up mockcouncils, and harangues, and combats, after the manner of the classical heroes of antiquity, and under their names—till, at the age of fourteen, Parr being now at the head of the school, was removed from it, and placed in the shop of his father, who was a surgeon and apothecary. The Doctor must have found, in the course of his practice, that there are some pills which will not go down—and this was one. Parr began to criticize the Latin of his father's prescriptions, instead of "making the mixture." Accordingly, having tried in vain to reconcile himself to the "uttering of mortal drugs" for three years, he was sent to Cambridge, and admitted of Emmanuel College, where Dr. Farmer was tutor. Of this proficient in black-letter we are told by Archdeacon Butler, that Farmer was a man of such singular indolence as to neglect sending in the young men's accounts, and is supposed to have burnt large sums of money by putting into the fire unopened letters, which contained remittances.

In 1791, when in his twenty-fifth year, Parr became a candidate for the head-mastership of Harrow, though he was beaten by Dr. B. Heath. A rebellion ensued among the boys, many of whom took Parr's part; and he threw up his situation of assistant, and withdrew to Stanmore. Here he was followed by forty of the young rebels, and with this stock-in-trade he proceeded to set up a school on his own account. This is thought to have been the crisis of Parr's life. The die had turned against him, and the disappointment, with its immediate consequences, gave a complexion to his future fortunes, character, and comfort. He had already mounted a full-bottomed wig when he stood for Harrow, anxious as it should seem to give his face a still further chance of keeping its start. He now began to ride on a black saddle, and bore in his hand a long wand with an ivory head, like a crosier, in high prelatical pomp. His neighbours, who wondered what it could all mean, had scarcely time to identify him with his pontificals before theysaw him stalking along the street in a dirty striped dressing-gown. A wife was all that was now wanted to complete the establishment at Stanmore, and accordingly, Miss Jane Marsingale, a lady of an ancient Yorkshire family was provided for him; Parr, like Hooker, appearing to have courted by proxy, and with about the same success. Thus Stanmore was set agoing as the rival of Harrow. These were fearful odds, and it came to pass that, in spite of "Attic Symposia," and grooves of Academus, and the enacting of a Greek play, and the perpetual recitation of the fragment in praise of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the establishment at Stanmore declined; and at the end of five years, Parr was not sorry to accept the mentorship of an endowed school at Colchester.

Parr was evidently fond of living in troubled waters: accordingly, on his removal to Colchester, he got into a quarrel with the trustees of the school on the subject of a lease; and he printed a pamphlet about it, which was so violent that he never published it, probably influenced by his prospect of succeeding to Norwich School. This occasioned Dr. Foster to remark, "That Norwich might be touched by a fellow-feeling for Colchester; and the crape-makers of the one place sympathize with the bag-makers of the other." The pamphlet was withheld, and Parr was elected to the school at Norwich. The preferment which he gained was the living of Asterby, which he exchanged for the perpetual curacy of Hatton, in Warwickshire. Neither was of much value. Lord Dartmouth, whose sons had been under Parr's care, endeavoured to procure something for him from Lord Thurlow, but the Chancellor is reported to have said "No," with an oath. The great and good Bishop Lowth, however, at the request of the same nobleman, gave Parr a prebend in St. Paul's, which, though a trifle at the time, eventually became, at the expiration of leases, a source of affluence to Parr in his old age. How far he was from such a condition at this period of his life, is seen by an incidentrelated by Mr. Field. The Doctor was one day in that gentleman's library, when his eye was caught by the title of Stephens's Greek Thesaurus. Suddenly turning about, he said to Field, vehemently, "Ah! my friend, my friend, may you never be forced, as I was at Norwich, to sell that work, to me so precious, from absolute and urgent necessity."

Dr. Parr and Dr. Johnson once had a sort of stand-up fight at argument. After the interview was over, Johnson said, "I do not know when I have had an occasion of such free controversy. It is remarkable how much of a man's life may pass without meeting with any instance of this kind of open discussion." Here is Dr. Parr's account of the meeting: "I remember the interview well. I gave him no quarter. The subject of our dispute was the liberty of the press. Dr. Johnson was very great; whilst he was arguing, I observed that he stamped. Upon this I stamped. Dr. Johnson said, 'Why did you stamp, Dr. Parr?' I replied, 'Sir, becauseyoustamped; and I was resolved not to give you the advantage of astampin the argument.'" It is impossible to do justice to this description of the scene. The vehemence, the characteristic pomposity with which it was accompanied, may easily be imagined by those who knew him, but cannot be adequately represented to those who did not.

In the party was Dr. ——, an Arian minister, and Mr. ——, a Socinian minister. One of the party seeing Parr was on friendly terms with the above gentlemen, said, "I suppose, sir, although they are heretics, you think it is possible they may be saved?" "Yes, sir," said he, adding with affected vehemence, "but they must bescorchedfirst." Parr talked of economy; he thought that a man's happiness was secure, in proportion to the small number of his wants, and said that all his lifetime it had been his object to prevent the multiplication of them in himself. Some one said to him, "Then, sir, your secret of happiness is tocut downyour wants."Parr."No, sir,mysecret is,not to let them grow."

The doctor used, on a Sunday evening, after church, to sit on the green at Hatton, with his pipe and his jug, and witness the exertions of his parishioners in the truly English game of cricket, making only one proviso, that none should join the party who had not previously been to church. It is needless to say his presence was an effectual check on all disorderly conduct. The skittle-grounds were deserted, and a better conducted parish was rarely seen than the worthy Doctor's.

Dr. Parr was one of the enthusiastic admirers of Shakspeare, who fell upon their knees before Ireland's MSS., and by their idolatry inspired hundreds of others. Still, Parr attempts to explain this in a note to the catalogue of his library at Hatton, as follows:—"Ireland's (Samuel) Great and Impudent Forgery, called 'Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments, under the hand and seal of William Shakspeare,' folio, 1796. I am almost ashamed to insert this worthless and infamously trickish book. It is said to include the tragedy ofKing Lear, and a fragment ofHamlet. Ireland told a lie when he imputed to me the words whichJoseph Wartonused, the very morning I called on Ireland, and was inclined to admit the possibility of genuineness in his papers. In my subsequent conversation I told him my change of opinion. But I thought it not worth while to dispute in print with a detected impostor.—S. P."

Parr, it will be recollected, was an everlasting smoker—he smoked morning, noon, and night. Once at a Visitation dinner in Colchester, he had the impudence to call for his pipe; but Dr. Hamilton, the archdeacon, told him there were other rooms in the house where he might enjoy himself without annoying others. Of a piece with this was his behaviour at a literary club in Colchester. Knowing the temper of the man, a pipe and bottle (contrary to the law of the club) were placed on the table, and he did ample justice to both; for he smoked and drank the whole night, andtalked so incessantly that Dr. Foster, the president, sat silent, like one who had lost the use of his tongue.

In July, 1818, Dr. Parr dined at Emmanuel (Cambridge), and met Dr. Butler, of Shrewsbury, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield. Dudley North seemed to be very popular in his college, for they drank his health after dinner. Parr spoke of him in very high terms. The principal objections to the society of "the learned pig" were that he had a more than Mahommedan fondness for tobacco, and the smoking of a pipe was with him, as with the followers of the Prophet, a certain passport to friendship. The chief objects of his detestation seemed to be a Christchurch man, a Johnian, a Welshman, and the Regent, all of whom suffered in turn under the lash of his invective. Harrow and Trinity were the idols of his adoration. Butler appeared to be much more of a civilized being than the Grecian Goliah. Parr took his breakfast in the room of Charles Brinsley Sheridan. The breakfast was given on Sunday. Parr never showed the slightest disposition to attend the morning service, but when breakfast was over, said, "Charles, Charles, where are the pipes?" and they had to be sent for from a neighbouring public-house. And the room was uninhabitable for three hours after Parr'sdéjeûnerfumigations.

Dr. Parr almost always spent his evenings in the company of his family and his visitors, or in that of some neighbouring friends. At such times his dress was in complete contrast with the costume of the morning; for he appeared in a well-powdered wig, and always wore his band and cassock. On extraordinary occasions he was arrayed in a full-dress suit of black velvet, of the cut of the old times, when his appearance was imposing and dignified.

Speaking of the honour once conferred upon him, of being invited to dinner at Carlton House, Parr mentions, with evident satisfaction, the kind condescension of the Prince of Wales, who was pleased to insist upon his takinghis pipe as usual after dinner. Of the Duke of Sussex, at whose table Parr was not unfrequently a guest, he used to tell that his Royal Highness not only allowed him to smoke, but smoked with him. He often represented it as an instance of the homage which rank and beauty delight to pay to talents and learning, that ladies of the highest station condescended to the office of lighting his pipe. He appeared to no advantage, however, in his custom of demanding the service of holding the lighted paper to his pipe from the youngest female who happened to be present; and who was often, by the freedom of his remarks, or by the gaze of the company, painfully disconcerted. This troublesome ceremony, in his later years, he wisely discarded.

The reader will probably recollect, in the well-known story, his reply to the lady who refused to allow Parr the indulgence of his pipe. In vain he pleaded that such indulgence had always been kindly granted in the mansions of the nobility, and even in the presence and in the palace of his sovereign. "Madam," said Parr to the lady, who still remained inexorable, "you must give me leave to tell you, you are the greatest—" whilst she, fearful of what might follow, earnestly interposed, and begged that he would express no rudeness. "Madam," resumed Dr. Parr, speaking aloud, and looking stern, "you are the greatest tobacco-stopper in England." This sally produced a loud laugh; but Parr found himself obliged to retire, in order to enjoy the pleasures of his pipe.

Dr. Parr was accustomed to amuse himself in the evening with cards, and whist was his favourite game. He would only play for a nominal stake; but, upon one occasion, he was persuaded to play with Bishop Watson for a shilling, which he won. Pushing it carefully to the bottom of his pocket, and placing his hand upon it, with a kind of mock solemnity, "There, my Lord Bishop," said Parr, "this is a trick of the devil; but I'll match him. So now, if you please, we will play for a penny;" and this was ever afterthe amount of his stake. He was not, on that account, at all the less ardent in the prosecution, or the less joyous in the success of the rubber. He had a high opinion of his own skill in the game, and could not very patiently tolerate the want of it in his partner. Being engaged with a party, in which he was unequally matched, he was asked by a lady how the fortune of the game turned; when he replied, "Pretty well, madam, considering that I have three adversaries."

Even ladies were not spared who incurred Parr's displeasure by their pertinacity. To one who had held out in argument against him, not very powerfully, and rather too perseveringly, and who had closed the debate by saying, "Well, Dr. Parr, I still maintain my opinion;" he replied, "Madam, you may, if you please,retainyour opinion, but you cannotmaintainit."

The close of Parr's life grew brighter: the increased value of his stall at St. Paul's set him abundantly at his ease; he could even indulge his love of pomp, and he encumbered himself with a coach and four.

Parr's hand was ever open as day. Poverty had vexed, but had never contracted his spirit; money he despised, except as it gave him power—power to ride in his state-coach, to throw wide his doors to hospitality, to load his table with plate and his shelves with learning; power to adorn his church with chandeliers and painted windows; to make glad the cottages of his poor; to grant a loan to a tottering farmer; to rescue from want a forlorn patriot or a thriftless scholar. Whether misfortune, or mismanagement, or folly, or vice, had brought its victim low, his want was a passport to Parr's pity, and the dew of his bounty fell alike upon the bad and the good, upon the just and the unjust. It is told of Boerhaave that, whenever he saw a criminal led out to execution, he would say, "May not this man be better than I? If otherwise, the praise is due, not to me, but the grace of God." Parr used to quote thissaying with applause. Such, we doubt not, would have been his own feelings on such an occasion.

The Doctor was fond of good living, but was not agourmet. "There are," he says, "certainly one or two luxuries to which I am addicted: the first is a shoulder of mutton, not under-roasted, and richly incrusted with flour and salt; the second is a plain suet-pudding; the third is a plain family plum-pudding; and the fourth, a kind of high-festival dish, consists of hot boiled lobsters, with a profusion of shrimp-sauce."

Parr preached the Spital sermon, at Christ Church, on the invitation of the Lord Mayor, Harvey Combe, and as they were coming out of the church together, "Well," said Parr, "how did you like the sermon?" "Why, Doctor," replied his lordship, "there were four things in it that I did not like to hear." "State them." "Why, to speak frankly, then, they were the quarters of the church-clock, which struck four times before you had finished." But his Spital sermon, in 1799, occupied nearly three hours in its delivery.

The life of this strange person may almost be said to have been commenced with a joke. He was the son of apoulterer, named John Horne, in Newport Street, Westminster; or, as he told his schoolfellows, his father was "aturkeymerchant." He was educated for the Church, according to his father's wish, and took orders for the bar.

What Tooke thought of the former profession may be seen in a letter of his to Wilkes, whose acquaintance he made in Paris in 1765, and to whom he thus wrote:—"You are now entering into correspondence with a parson, and I am greatly apprehensive lest that title should disgust; but give me leave to assure you, I am not ordained a hypocrite. It is true I have suffered the infectious hand of a bishop to be waved over me, whose imposition, like the sop given toJudas, is only a signal for the devil to enter. I hope I have escaped the contagion; and, if I have not, if you should at any time discover the black spot under the tongue, pray kindly assist me to conquer the prejudices of education and profession."

Tooke was, upon one occasion, memorably outwitted by Wilkes, who was then sheriff of London and Middlesex. Tooke had challenged Wilkes, who sent him the following cutting reply:—"Sir, I do not think it my business to cut the throat of every desperado that may be tired of his life; but as I am at present High Sheriff of the City of London, it may happen that I shall shortly have an opportunity of attending you in my official capacity, in which case I will answer for it thatyou shall have no groundto complain of my endeavours to serve you." We agree with Mr. Colton, in hisLacon, that the above retort is a masterpiece of its kind.

The violence of Tooke's political predilections, perhaps, was heightened by an accidental circumstance in his early life. His father, the poulterer, had for his neighbour, Frederick, Prince of Wales, at Leicester House, who most unceremoniously had cut through the wall of Horne's garden a doorway, as an outlet towards Newport Market, for the convenience of the Prince's domestics. But the poulterer and his son resisted the encroachment, and triumphed over the heir-apparent to the English crown, and had the obnoxious doorway removed, and the wall reinstated. This victory, it is reasonable to suppose, fanned the political aspirations of Horne Tooke.

For many years Tooke was the terror of judges, ministers of state, and all constituted authorities. When put on trial for his life (for treason), "so far from being moved by his dangerous position, he was never in more buoyant spirits. His wit and humour had often before been exhibited in Courts of Justice; but never had they been so brilliant as on this occasion. Erskine had been at his request assignedto him as counsel; but he himself undertook some of the most important duties of his advocate, cross-examining the witnesses for the Crown, objecting to evidence, and even arguing points of law. If his life had really been in jeopardy, such a course would have been perilous and rash in the highest degree; but nobody in court, except, perhaps, the Attorney and Solicitor-General, thought there was the slightest chance of an adverse verdict. The prisoner led off the proceedings by a series of preliminary jokes, which were highly successful. When placed in the dock, he cast a glance up at the ventilators of the hall, shivered, and expressed a wish that their lordships would be so good as to get the business over quickly as he was afraid of catching cold. When arraigned, and asked by the officer of the court in the usual form, how he would be tried? he answered, 'Iwouldbe tried by God and my country—but——' and looked sarcastically round the court. Presently he made an application to be allowed a seat by his counsel; and entered upon an amusing altercation with the judge, as to whether his request should be granted as an indulgence or as a right. The result was that he consented to take his place by the side of Erskine as a matter of favour. In the midst of the merriment occasioned by these sallies, the Solicitor-General opened the case for the Crown."[42]

His change of name to John Horne Tooke is thus explained. At the time when he was rising into celebrity, the estate of Purley, near Godstone, in Surrey, belonged to Mr. William Tooke, one of the four friends who joined in supplying him with an income, while, after resigning the vicarage of New Brentford, he studied for the law. One of Tooke's richer neighbours, having failed in wresting from him his manorial rights by a lawsuit, had applied to parliament and nearly succeeded in effecting his purpose by means of an inclosure bill, which would have greatly depreciated the Purleyestate. Tooke despondingly confided his apprehensions to Horne, who resolved at once to avert the blow, which he did in a bold and very singular manner. The third reading of the bill was to take place the next day, and Horne immediately wrote a violent libel on the Speaker of the House of Commons in reference to it, and obtained its insertion in thePublic Advertiser. As might be expected, the first parliamentary proceeding next day was the appearance of the adventurous libeller in the custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms. When called upon for his defence, he delivered a most remarkable speech, in which he pointed out the injustice of the bill in question with so much success, that not only was it reconsidered, and the clauses which affected his friend's property expunged, but resolutions were passed by the House to prevent the possibility in future of such bills being smuggled through parliament without due investigation. In gratitude for this important service, Mr. Tooke, who had no family, made Horne his heir; on his death in 1803, the latter became proprietor of Purley, and, as one of the conditions of inheritance, added the name of Tooke to his own, and from this time was known as John Horne Tooke. His celebratedDiversions of Purleywas named in compliment to the residence of the author's friend.

Mr. Tooke's Sunday dinners at his villa on Wimbledon Common were very festive gatherings. So early as eleven in the morning, some of the guests might be descried crossing the green in a diagonal direction; while others took a more circuitous route along the great road, with a view of calling at the mansion formerly occupied by the Duke of Newcastle while Prime Minister, but then the residence of Sir Francis Burdett. For many years a coach-and-four, with Mr. Bosville and two or three friends, punctually arrived within a few minutes of two o'clock. At four, the dinner was usually served in the parlour looking on the Common; and the servant having announced the dinner, the company passed through the hall, the chairs of which were crowdedwith great-coats, hats, &c., and took their seats without any ceremony, each usually placing himself in his proper situation. During dinner, the host's colloquial powers were called forth into action: indeed, although he possessed an excellent appetite, and partook freely of almost everything before him, yet he found ample time for his gibes and jokes, which seemed to act as so many corroborants, at once strengthening and improving the appetites of his guests.

Here, at times, were to be seen men of rank and mechanics, sitting in social converse; persons of ample fortune, and those completely ruined by the prosecutions of the Attorney-General. On one side was to be seen, perhaps, the learned Professor of an University, replete with Greek and Latin, and panting to display his learned lore, indignant at being obliged to chatter with his neighbour, a member of the Common Council, about city politics. Next to these would sit a man of letters and a banker, between whom it was difficult to settle the agio of conversation, the one being full of the present state of the money-market, the other bursting to display his knowledge of all books, except those of account alone!

Tooke took delight in praising his daughters, which he sometimes did by those equivocatory falsehoods which were one of his principal pleasures. Of the eldest he said, "All the beer brewed in this house is that young lady's brewing." It would have been equally true to say, all the hogs killed in this house were of that young lady's killing; for they brewed no beer. When a member of the Constitutional Society, he would frequently utter sentences, the first part of which would have subjected him to death by the law, but for the salvo that followed; and the more violent they were, thus contrasted and equivocatory, the greater was his triumph.

When Tooke was justifying to the Commissioners his return of income under 60l.a-year, one of those gentlemen, dissatisfied with the explanation, hastily said, "Mr. Tooke,I do not understand you." "Very possibly," replied the sarcastic citizen; "but as you have nothalftheunderstandingof other men, you should havedoublethepatience."

Horne Tooke told Mr. Rogers that in his early days a friend gave him a letter of introduction to D'Alembert, at Paris. Dressedà-la-mode, he presented the letter, and was very courteously received by D'Alembert, who talked to him about operas, comedies, suppers, &c. Tooke had expected conversation on very different topics, and was greatly disappointed. When he took leave, he was followed by a gentleman in a plain suit, who had been in the room during his interview with D'Alembert, and who had perceived his chagrin. "D'Alembert," said the gentleman, "supposed from your gay apparel that you were merely apetit maître." The gentleman was David Hume. On his next visit to D'Alembert, Tooke's dress was altogether different, and so was the conversation.

Tooke's literal kind of wit—set off, as tradition recounts, by a courteous manner and by imperturbable coolness—is not ill shown in the following:—"'Power,' said Lord —— to Tooke, 'should follow property.' 'Very well,' he replied, 'then we will take the property from you, and the power shall follow it....'" "'Now, young man, as you are settled in town,' said my uncle, 'I would advise you to take a wife.' 'With all my heart, sir; whose wife shall I take?'" It is a trait of manners that the "Rev. Mr. Horne" must have been a young clergyman at the time of this conversation; he did not, as is well known, take the name of Tooke till a later period. We have a trace, too, of his philological acuteness in Mr. Rogers'sMemorandum Book:—"An illiterate people are most tenacious of their language. In traffic, the seller learns that of the buyer before the buyer learns his. A bull in the field, when brought to town and cut up in the market, becomes bœuf, beef; a calf, veal; a sheep, mouton; a pig, pork;—because there the Norman purchased, and the seller soon learnthisterms; while thepeasantry retained their own." It is not surprising that a sharp logical wit should be an acute interpreter of language.

In the year 1811, a most flagrant depredation was committed in Mr. Tooke's house at Wimbledon, by a collector of taxes, who daringly carried away a silver tea and sugar-caddy, the value of which amounted in weight in silver to at least twenty times more than the sum demanded, for a tax which Tooke declared he would never pay. Instructions were given to an attorney for replevying the goods; but the tax-collector, by the advice of a friend, returned the tea-caddy, and the man declaring he had a large family, Tooke treated him very kindly, and the matter was allowed to drop.

Mr. Tooke's health had been a long time before his decease in a declining state; but his humour and eccentricity remained in full force to the last; and even in the gripe of death his serenity never forsook him. While he was speechless and considered insensible, Sir Francis Burdett, who was present with a few more friends, prepared a cordial for him, which the medical attendants declared to be of no avail, but which the baronet persisted in offering, and raising up the patient for that purpose, when Mr. Tooke perceiving who offered the draught, drank it off with a smile, and in a few minutes expired, on March 18th, 1812, at his house at Wimbledon. He was put into a strong elm shell. The coffin was made from the heart of a solid oak, cut down for the purpose. It measured six feet one inch in length; in breadth at the shoulders, two feet two inches; depth at the head, two feet six inches; and the depth at the feet, two feet four inches. This great depth of coffin was necessary in consequence of the contraction of the body of the deceased.

A tomb had long been prepared for Mr. Tooke in his garden at Wimbledon, in which it was his desire to have been buried; but this, after his decease, being opposed by his daughters and an aunt of theirs, his remains were conveyedin a hearse and six to Ealing, in Middlesex; attended by three mourning-coaches, containing Sir Francis Burdett and several other political and literary friends. His remains were interred according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, otherwise, it was his desire that no funeral service should be read over his body, but that six poor men should have a guinea each to bear him to the vault in his garden. He rests in a vault, inclosed with iron railings, and bearing this inscription:—"John Horne Tooke, late of Wimbledon, author of theDiversions of Purley, was born June, 1736, and died March 18th, 1812, contented and grateful."

It has been sagaciously remarked in a paper in theNational Review, No. 18, that "if Mr. Canning had not been a busy politician, he would probably have attained eminence as a writer. There must be extraordinary vitality in jokes and parodies, which after sixty or seventy years are almost as amusing as if their objects had not long since become obsolete." We propose to string together a few of these pleasantries, collected from the above and other authentic sources.

It is related that Mr. Canning's aunt on the anniversary of her birthday made presents to each of her relations: to Mr. Canning she once gave a piece of fustian, which produced from him the following stanzas, found in MS., a line wanting:—

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