Chapter XVI: Part 16

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 the _singular_ number, 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 Bishop _Proteus_, 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 the _sobriquet_ of 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 the _New 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 freshman vociferated, "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.

Parriana: Oddities of Dr. Parr.

In his boyhood, Parr is described, by his sister as studious after his kind, delighting in "Mother Goose and the 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 mock councils, 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 they saw 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 incident related 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, because _you_ stamped; and I was resolved not to give you the advantage of a _stamp_ in 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 be _scorched_ first." 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 to _cut down_ your wants." _Parr._ "No, sir, _my_ secret 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 of _King Lear_, and a fragment of _Hamlet_. Ireland told a lie when he imputed to me the words which _Joseph Warton_ used, 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, and talked 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's _déjeûner_ fumigations.

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 taking his 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 after the 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, _retain_ your opinion, but you cannot _maintain_ it."

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 this saying 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 a _gourmet_. "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.

Oddities of John Horne Tooke.

The life of this strange person may almost be said to have been commenced with a joke. He was the son of a _poulterer_, named John Horne, in Newport Street, Westminster; or, as he told his schoolfellows, his father was "a _turkey_ merchant." 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 to Judas, 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 that _you shall have no ground_ to complain of my endeavours to serve you." We agree with Mr. Colton, in his _Lacon_, 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 assigned to 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, 'I _would_ be 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]

[42] Massey's _History of England_.

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 Purley estate. 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 the _Public 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 celebrated _Diversions of Purley_ was 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 crowded with 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 60_l._ 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 not _half_ the _understanding_ of other men, you should have _double_ the _patience_."

Horne Tooke told Mr. Rogers that in his early days a friend gave him a letter of introduction to D'Alembert, at Paris. Dressed _à-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 a _petit 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's _Memorandum 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 learnt _his_ terms; while the peasantry 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 conveyed in 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 the _Diversions of Purley_, was born June, 1736, and died March 18th, 1812, contented and grateful."

Mr. Canning's Humour.

It has been sagaciously remarked in a paper in the _National 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:--

"Whilst all on this auspicious day,
Well pleas'd their gratulations pay,
And sweetly smile, and softly say
A thousand pretty speeches;
My Muse her grateful tribute wings,
Nor scorn the lay her duty brings,
Tho' humble be the theme she sings--
A pair of shooting breeches.

"Soon shall the tailor's subtle art
Have fashion'd them in every part,
And made them snug, and neat, and smart,
With twenty thousand stitches;
Then mark the moral of my song,
Oh! may our lives but prove as strong,
And wear as well, and last as long,
As these, my shooting breeches.

"And when to ease the load of strife
Of public and of private life,
My fate shall bless me with a wife,
I seek not rank or riches;
But worth like thine, serene and gay,

* * * * *

And form'd like thine, to give away
Not wear herself the breeches."

Among Canning's playful rhymes will be remembered, in _The Microcosm_, Nos. 1, 11, and 12, those commencing,--

"The Queen of Hearts,
She made some tarts," &c.

The continuation, which is less known, apparently contains some political allusions:--

"Ye Queen of Spades
Herself degrades
By dancing on the green;
Ye Knave stood by
In extacy,
Enamoured of ye Queen.
Ye King so brave
Says to the Knave,
'I disapprove this dance;
You make more work
Than Mister Burke
Does with ye Queen of France.'"

The following is written as a variation:

"Ye Queen of Spades
She beat ye maids
For their immodesty;
Ye Knave of Spades
He kissed those maids,
Which made the Queen to cry.
Ye King then curst
That Knave who durst
Make Royalty shed tears;
'Vile Knave,' says he,
''Tis my decree
That you lose both your ears.'

"Ye Diamond Queen
Was one day seen
So drunk she could not stand;
Ye Diamond Knave
He blushed, and gave
Ye Queen a reprimand.
Ye King, distrest
That his dearest
Should do so vile a thing,
Says, 'By my wig
She's like ye pig
Of David, ye good king.'

"Ye Queen of Clubs
Made syllabubs;
Ye Knave came like Big Ben,
He snatched the cup
And drank it up--
His toast was, 'Rights of men.'
With hands and eyes
That marked surprise
Ye King laments his fate:
'Alas!' says he,
'I plainly see
Ye Knave's a Democrate.'"

Mr. Canning used habitually to designate the selfish and officious Duke of Buckingham as the "Ph.D.," an abbreviation which was understood to mean "the fat Duke." That bulky potentate had cautioned him on the eve of his expected voyage to India, against the frigate in which he was to sail, on the ground that she was too low in the water. "I am much obliged to you," he replies to Lord Morley, "for your report of the Duke of Buckingham's caution respecting the _Jupiter_. Could you have the experiments made _without_ the Duke of Buckingham on board? as that _might_ make a difference."

In a letter to Lord Granville, at a time when Prince Metternich was expected in Paris, he says, "You ask me what you shall say to Metternich. In the first place, you shall hear what I think of him; that he is the greatest r---- and l---- on the Continent, perhaps in the civilized world!"

Almost all the brilliant exceptions to the average trash of the _Anti-Jacobin_ appear to belong to Canning; though, if the authority of the most recent editor may be trusted, the best stanza of the best poem was added to the original manuscript by Pitt.

"Sun, moon, and thou, vile world, adieu!
Which kings and priests are plotting in;
Here doomed to starve on water gru-
el, I no more shall see the U-
niversity of Gottingen."

Canning's _Friend of Humanity and the Knife-grinder_ is well remembered as witty ridicule of the youthful Jacobin effusions of Southey, in which it was sedulously inculcated that there was a natural and eternal warfare between the poor and the rich; the Sapphic lines of Southey affording a tempting subject for ludicrous parody:--

"_Friend of Humanity._
"Needy Knife-grinder? whither art thou going?
Rough is your road--your wheel is out of order.
Bleak blows the blast--your hat has got a hole in't!
So have your breeches!

"Weary Knife-grinder! little think the proud ones,
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike-
Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, 'Knives and
Scissors to grind O!'

"Tell me, Knife-grinder, how came you to grind knives?
Did some rich man tyrannically use you?
Was it the squire, or parson of the parish,
Or the attorney?

"Was it the squire, for killing of his game, or
Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining?
Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little
All in a lawsuit?

"(Have you not read the _Rights of Man_, by Tom Paine?)
Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids,
Ready to fall, as soon as you have told
Your pitiful story.

"_Knife-grinder._
"Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir.
Only last night, a-drinking at the Chequers,
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were
Torn in a scuffle.

"Constables came up for to take me into
Custody; they took me before the justice;
Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish
Stocks for a vagrant.

"I should be glad to drink your honour's health in
A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence;
But for my part I never love to meddle
With politics, sir.

"_Friend of Humanity._
"I give thee sixpence! I will see thee d----d first--
Wretch, whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance--
Sordid, unfeeling reprobate; degraded,
Spiritless outcast!

[_Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a
transport of Republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy._]

Again, the atrocious exaltation of the contemporary poet in the murder of Jean Bon St. André is still delightfully contagious:--

"'Twould have moved a Christian's bowels
To hear the doubts he stated;
But the Moors they did as they were bid,
And strangled him while he prated."

The exquisite polish of the _Loves of the Triangles_ is enjoyed, while Darwin's grave absurdities are only remembered in Miss Edgeworth's admiring quotations, or by Lord Brougham's fidelity to the literary prepossessions of his youth. It is remarkable that an author who in literature can only be considered as an amateur, should have possessed that rare accomplishment of style which is the first condition of durable reputation. The humour of Canning's more ephemeral lampoons, as they exist in oral tradition, seems to have been not less admirable. When Mr. Whitbread said, or was supposed to say, in the House of Commons, that a certain day was memorable to him as the anniversary both of the establishment of his brewery and of the death of his father, the metrical version of his speech placed his sentiments in a more permanent form:--

"This day I will hail with a smile and a sigh,
For his beer with an _e_, and his bier with an _i_."

Some of the diplomatic documents which have been published tend to justify the common opinion that Mr. Canning was liable to be misled by his facility of composition and his love of epigram. On one occasion, he wrote to Lord Granville, that he had forgotten to answer "the impudent request of the Pope," for protection to his subjects against the Algerine corsairs. He replies, with more point than relevancy, "Why does not the Pope prohibit the African Slave Trade? It is carried on wholly by Roman Catholic powers, and by those among them who acknowledge most subserviently the power and authority of the court of Rome.... Tell my friend Macchi, that so long as any power whom the Pope can control, and does not, sends a slave-ship to Southern Africa, I have not the audacity to propose to Northern Africans to abstain from cruising for Roman domestics--indeed, I think them justified in doing so." In a private conversation or a friendly letter, the fallacy of the _tu quoque_ would have been forgotten in the appropriateness of the repartee; but in a question of serious business, the argument was absurd, and a diplomatic communication ought never to be insulting. There might be little practical danger in affronting the Pope; but Mr. Canning himself would have admitted, on reflection, that his witticism could by no possibility conduce to the suppression of the Slave Trade.

Here is a more playful instance of humorous correspondence. When Mr. Canning was forming his ministry, he offered Lord Lyndhurst the Chancellorship, though he had recently attacked the new Premier in a speech which was said to be borrowed from a hostile pamphlet, written by Dr. Philpotts, Bishop of Exeter. Canning offered Lord Lyndhurst the seals in a letter expressive of his goodwill, "_pace Philpotti_;" and the answer of acceptance was signed, "Yours ever, except for twenty-four hours."

Mr. Canning had a faithful college servant, who became much attached to him. Francis, for such was his name, was always distinguished by his blunt honesty and his familiarity with his master. During his master's early political career, Francis continued to live with him. Mr. Canning, whose love of fun was innate, used sometimes to play off his servant's bluntness upon his right honourable friends. One of these, whose honours did not sit very easily upon him, had forgotten Francis, though often indebted to his kind offices at Oxford. Francis complained to Mr. Canning that Mr. W. did not speak to him. "Pooh!" said Mr. Canning, "it is all your fault; you should speak first: he thinks you proud. He dines here to-day--go up to him in the drawing-room, and congratulate him upon the post he has just got." Francis was obedient. Surrounded by a splendid ministerial circle, Francis advanced to the distinguished statesman, with "How d'ye do, Mr. W. I hope you're very well--I wish you joy of your luck, and hope your place will turn out a good thing." The roar of course was universal. The same Francis afterwards obtained a comfortable berth in the Customs, through his kind master's interest. He was a stanch Tory. During Queen Caroline's trial, he met Mr. Canning in the street. "Well Francis, how are you?" said the statesman, who had just resigned his office, holding out his hand. "It is not well, Mr. Canning," replied Francis, refusing the pledge of friendship--"It is not well, Mr. Canning, that you should say anything in favour of that ----." "But, Francis, political differences should not separate old friends--give me your hand." The sturdy politician at length consented to honour the ex-minister with a shake of forgiveness. It is said that Mr. Canning did not forget him when he returned to power.

Canning and Lord Eldon were, in many respects, "wide as the Poles asunder," although they were in the same administration. Mr. Stapleton, in his _George Canning and his Times_, publishes a curious letter written in 1826 to Lord Eldon, who exhibited his unconcealed dislike to his brilliant and liberal colleague by steadily refusing to place any part of his vast patronage at his disposal. Complying with the importunity of Mr. Martin, of Galway, Mr. Canning formally transmitted a letter of application, reminding the Chancellor at the same time that in twenty-five years he had made four requests for appointments; "with one of which your lordship had the goodness to comply." The letter was placed in the private secretary (Mr. Stapleton's) hands, with directions to copy it and forward it immediately; but knowing the state of parties in the cabinet, and seeing that the letter had been written under the influence of irritation, Mr. Stapleton undertook the responsibility of keeping it back. A few hours afterwards, Mr. Stapleton said to Mr. Canning, "I have not sent your letter to old Eldon." "Not sent it," he angrily inquired; "and pray why not?" Mr. Stapleton replied, "Because I am sure that you ought to read it over again before you send it." "What do you mean?" Mr. Canning sharply replied. "Go and get it." Mr. Stapleton did as he was bid; Mr. Canning read it over, and then a smile of good-humour came over his countenance. "Well," he said, "you are a good boy. You are quite right; don't send it. I will write another."

When his obstinate old enemy stood beside him at the Duke of York's funeral, in St. George's Chapel, Mr. Canning became uneasy at seeing the old man standing on the cold, bare pavement. Perhaps he was more uneasy because he knew he was unfriendly; so to prevent the cold damp of the stones from striking though his shoes, he made him lay down his cocked hat, and stand upon it; and when at last he got weary of so much standing, he put him in a niche of carved wood-work, where he was just able to stand upon wood. Unfortunately, although the tough old Chancellor was saved by his constitution and his hat, Mr. Canning's health received, through the exposure to cold, a shock from which he never recovered. A few days afterwards he paid a last visit to Lord Liverpool, at Bath, and on the plea of entertaining Mr. Stapleton, as a young man, with the stories of their early years, they went on amusing each other by recounting all sorts of fun and adventure, which were evidently quite as entertaining to the old as to the young. The picture of the two time-worn ministers laughing over the scenes of their youth must have been a treat.