Even CRACHERODE'S self, whom passions rarely move,
At this soft shrine has deign'd to whisper love.--
Haste then, ye swains, who RUMMING'S form adore,
Possess your Eleanour, and sigh no more.

It must be admitted that this is at once elegant and happy.

* * * * *

We will now say somewhat of the man himself. Mr. Steevens
lived in a retired and eligibly situated house, just on the
rise of Hampstead Heath. It was paled in; and had,
immediately before it, a verdant lawn skirted with a variety
of picturesque trees. Formerly, this house has been a
tavern, which was known by the name of the _Upper Flask_:
and which my fair readers (if a single female can have the
courage to peruse these bibliomaniacal pages) will recollect
to have been the same to which Richardson sends Clarissa in
one of her escapes from Lovelace. Here Steevens lived,
embosomed in books, shrubs, and trees: being either too coy,
or too unsociable, to mingle with his neighbours. His habits
were indeed peculiar: not much to be envied or imitated; as
they sometimes betrayed the flights of a madman, and
sometimes the asperities of a cynic. His attachments were
warm, but fickle both in choice and duration. He would
frequently part from one, with whom he had lived on terms of
close intimacy, without any assignable cause; and his
enmities, once fixed, were immovable. There was, indeed, a
kind of venom in his antipathies; nor would he suffer his
ears to be assailed, or his heat to relent, in favour of
those against whom he entertained animosities, however
capricious and unfounded. In _one_ pursuit only was he
consistent: _one_ object only did he woo with an inflexible
attachment; and that object was _Dame_ DRAMA.

I have sat behind him, within a few years of his death, and
watched his sedulous attention to the performances of
strolling players, who used to hire a public room in
Hampstead; and towards whom his gallantry was something more
substantial than mere admiration and applause: for he would
make liberal presents of gloves, shoes, and
stockings--especially to the female part of the company. His
attention, and even delight, during some of the most
wretched exhibitions of the dramatic art, was truly
surprising; but he