oom calling it to mind, which led him to speak
of the one painted by Pickersgill for St. John's College, Cambridge. 'I
was a member of that College, he said, 'and the fellows and students
did me the honour to ask me to sit, and allowed me to choose the artist.
I wrote to Mr. Rogers on the subject, and he recommended Pickersgill,
who came down soon afterwards, and the picture was painted here.' He
believed he had sat twenty-three times. My impression is he was in doubt
whether Inman's or Pickersgill's portrait was the better one.

* * * * *

He spoke with great animation of the advantage of classical study, Greek
especially. 'Where,' said he, 'would one look for a greater orator than
Demosthenes; or finer dramatic poetry, next to Shakspeare, than that of
Aeschylus and Sophocles, not to speak of Euripides?' Herodotus he
thought 'the most interesting and instructive book, next to the Bible,
which had ever been written.' Modern discoveries had only tended to
confirm the general truth of his narrative. Thucydides he thought less
of.

* * * * *

France was our next subject, and one which seemed very near his heart.
He had been much in that country at the out-break of the Revolution, and
afterwards during its wildest excesses. At the time of the September
massacres he was at Orleans. Addressing Mrs. W. he said, 'I wonder how I
came to stay there so long, and at a period so exciting.' He had known
many of the abbes and other ecclesiastics, and thought highly of them as
a class; they were earnest, faithful men: being unmarried, he must say,
they were the better able to fulfil their sacred duties; they were
married to their flocks. In the towns there seemed, he admitted, very
little religion; but in the country there had always been a great deal.
'I should like to spend another month in France,' he said, 'before I
close my eyes.' He seemed to feel deep commiseration for the sorrows of
that unhappy country. It was evidently the remembrance of hopes which in
his youth he had ardently cherished, and which had been blighted, on
which his mind was dwelling. I alluded to Henry the Fifth, to whom many
eyes were, I thought, beginning to turn. With him, he remarked, there
would be a principle for which men could contend--legitimacy. The
advantage of this he stated finely.

There was tenderness, I thought, in the tones of his voice, when
speaking with his wife; and I could