not in fear, or
harmony, or for amusement, but I am afraid from the effects produced by
advanced age. I regret this--he is an excellent person, and a
gentlemanly poet; and I never shall forget the patience with which he
bore a most unintentional misquotation, made from his works, and in his
presence, by a man of the name of Barton, who wanted to compliment him,
by recollecting his verses. The story that he quoted was Rogers' pretty
song of

"Dear is my little native vale,
The ring-dove builds and warbles there,
Close by my cot she tells her tale,
To every passing villager."

"Mr. Barton--who he was I never found out--having eulogized this little
effusion with a superhuman ecstacy, repeated it right to a line--but not
to a word. He gave it us thus--

"Dear is my little native vale,
The ring-dove builds and warbles there,
Close by my cot she _shows_ her _tail_
To every passing villager."

"Not a muscle moved in Mr. Rogers' pale and placid countenance, you
would hardly have thought he lived; but turning to Luttrell, whose mouth
twisted and whose eye rolled at the fun of the mistake, he simply
whispered, 'Non _tali_ auxilio, &c.' Barton survived it, and is still
alive and merry.

"I perceive that there have been changes at the Admiralty. Dyer, Darch,
and Riley superannuated. Hay takes Darch's place as reading clerk. This
is right. Hay is a gentleman, and a man of business. Met Sir
Francis--which Sir Francis, you would say, for there are two who
frequent the Admiralty, the obtuse and the clever. I mean the clever.
'Well, Frank, how goes on the Vernon, and how did she go off the other
day? No want of water, I presume.' 'No; thank _heaven_ for that! Why,
she went off beautifully, but the lubberly mateys contrived to get her
foul of the hulk, and Lord Vernon came out of the conflict minus a leg
and an arm.'--'Who had you there?' 'Upon my honour I hardly know. I was
so busy paying my devoirs to Lady Graham; she looked for all the world
like a mermaid, as she stood by the bows and christened the vessel. Her
hair hung down as straight as the lower rigging when first put over the
mast heads.'--'I wish I had such a beautiful mermaid for a wife,'
replied H----, who had joined and listened to our conversation. 'What a
pretty creature is that Miss E----; she looked as fresh as if she had
just come out of a shower bath.' 'Well, so she had.'"

* * * * *

"I went to the O