as I had ended, the boys brought in the wild turkey,
which they had very ingeniously roasted, and with some of Mrs.
Burcot's fine ale and bread, I had an excellent supper. The bones of
the penitent Orton I removed to a hole I had ordered my lad to dig for
them; the skull excepted, which I kept, and still keep on my table for
a _memento mori_; and that I may never forget the good lesson which
the percipient who once resided in it had given. It is often the
subject of my meditation. When I am alone of an evening, in my closet,
which is often my case, I have the skull of John Orton before me, and
as I smoke a philosophic pipe, with my eyes fastened on it, I learn
more from the solemn object than I could from the most philosophical
and laboured speculations. What a wild and hot head once--how cold and
still now; poor skull, I say: and what was the end of all thy daring,
frolics and gambols--thy licentiousness and impiety--a severe and
bitter repentance. In piety and goodness John Orton found at last that
happiness the world could not give him."

Hazlitt has said that "the soul of Rabelais passed into John Amory."
His name was Thomas, not John, and there is very little that is
Rabelaisian in his spirit. One sees what Hazlitt meant--the voluble
and diffuse learning, the desultory thread of narration, the mixture
of religion and animalism. But the resemblance is very superficial,
and the parallel too complimentary to Amory. It is difficult to think
of the soul of Rabelais in connection with a pedantic and uxorious
Unitarian. To lovers of odd books, _John Buncle_ will always have a
genuine attraction. Its learning would have dazzled Dr. Primrose, and
is put on in glittering spars and shells, like the ornaments of the
many grottoes that it describes. It is diversified by descriptions of
natural scenery, which are often exceedingly felicitous and original,
and it is quickened by the human warmth and flush of the love
passages, which, with all their quaintness, are extremely human. It is
essentially a "healthy" book, as Charles Lamb, with such a startling
result, assured the Scotchman. Amory was a fervid admirer of
womankind, and he favoured a rare type, the learned lady who bears
her learning lightly and can discuss "the quadrations of curvilinear
spaces" without ceasing to be "a bouncing, dear, delightful girl," and
adroit in the preparation of toast and chocolate. The style of the
book is very careless and irregular, but rises