You must know, Mrs. Tichborne sat next to Lady Sunderland.
It would have been admirable to have had him finish his compliment in
that manner.' . . . 'His expressions all bear the stamp of novelty,
and his thoughts of sterling sense. He practises a kind of
philosophical abstinence. . . . He carried Mrs. Rolt and myself to
Tunbridge, five miles from hence, where we were to see some fine old
ruins. First rode the doctor on a tall steed, decently caparisoned
in dark gray; next, ambled Mrs. Rolt on a hackney horse; . . . then
followed your humble servant on a milk-white palfrey. I rode on in
safety, and at leisure to observe the company, especially the two
figures that brought up the rear. The first was my servant,
valiantly armed with two uncharged pistols; the last was the doctor's
man, whose uncombed hair so resembled the mane of the horse he rode,
one could not help imagining they were of kin, and wishing, for the
honor of the family, that they had had one comb betwixt them. On his
head was a velvet cap, much resembling a black saucepan, and on his
side hung a little basket. At last we arrived at the King's Head,
where the loyalty of the doctor induced him to alight; and then,
knight-errant-like, he took his damsels from off their palfreys, and
courteously handed us into the inn.' . . . The party returned to the
Wells; and 'the silver Cynthia held up her lamp in the heavens' the
while. 'The night silenced all but our divine doctor, who sometimes
uttered things fit to be spoken in a season when all nature seems to
be hushed and hearkening. I followed, gathering wisdom as I went,
till I found, by my horse's stumbling, that I was in a bad road, and
that the blind was leading the blind. So I placed my servant between
the doctor and myself; which he not perceiving, went on in a most
philosophical strain, to the great admiration of my poor clown of a
servant, who, not being wrought up to any pitch of enthusiasm, nor
making any answer to all the fine things he heard, the doctor,
wondering I was dumb, and grieving I was so stupid, looked round and
declared his surprise.'"

Young's oddity and absence of mind are gathered from other sources
besides these stories of Mrs. Montagu's, and gave rise to the report that
he was the original of Fielding's "Parson Adams;" but this Croft denies,
and mentions a