aid, What, _you_ read Kant? Why,
_I_ that am a German born, don't understand him!" This was too much to
bear, and Holcroft, starting up, called out in no measured tone, "Mr.
C----, you are the most eloquent man I ever met with, and the most
troublesome with your eloquence!" P---- held the cribbage-peg that was to
mark him game, suspended in his hand; and the whist table was silent for a
moment. I saw Holcroft down stairs, and, on coming to the landing-place in
Mitre-court, he stopped me to observe, that "he thought Mr. C---- a very
clever man, with a great command of language, but that he feared he did
not always affix very precise ideas to the words he used." After he was
gone, we had our laugh out, and went on with the argument on the nature of
Reason, the Imagination, and the Will. I wish I could find a publisher for
it: it would make a supplement to the _Biographia Literaria_ in a volume
and a half octavo.

Those days are over! An event, the name of which I wish never to mention,
broke up our party, like a bombshell thrown into the room: and now we
seldom meet----

"Like angels' visits, short and far between."

There is no longer the same set of persons, nor of associations. L----
does not live where he did. By shifting his abode, his notions seem less
fixed. He does not wear his old snuff-coloured coat and breeches. It
looks like an alteration in his style. An author and a wit should have a
separate costume, a particular cloth: he should present something positive
and singular to the mind, like Mr. Douce of the Museum. Our faith in the
religion of letters will not bear to be taken to pieces, and put together
again by caprice or accident. L. H---- goes there sometimes. He has a fine
vinous spirit about him, and tropical blood in his veins: but he is better
at his own table. He has a great flow of pleasantry and delightful animal
spirits: but his hits do not tell like L----'s; you cannot repeat them the
next day. He requires not only to be appreciated, but to have a select
circle of admirers and devotees, to feel himself quite at home. He sits at
the head of a party with great gaiety and grace; has an elegant manner and
turn of features; is never at a loss--_aliquando sufflaminandus erat_--has
continual sportive sallies of wit or fancy; tells a story capitally;
mimics an actor, or an acquaintance to admiration; laughs with great glee
and good-humour at his own or other people's jokes; understands the point
of an