d,
Colonel Joshua Wentworth; but the colonel by some maladroitness managed
to turn the current of Pactolus in another direction. The vast property
was bequeathed to George Jaffrey Jeffries, the testator's grandnephew,
on condition that the heir, then a lad of thirteen, should drop the name
of Jeffries, reside permanently in Portsmouth, and adopt no profession
excepting that of gentleman. There is an immense amount of Portsmouth
as well as George Jaffrey in that final clause. George the fourth
handsomely complied with the requirements, and dying at the age of
sixty-six, without issue or assets, was the last of that particular line
of Georges. I say that he handsomely complied with the requirements of
the will; but my statement appears to be subject to qualification,
for on the day of his obsequies it was remarked of him by a caustic
contemporary: "Well, yes, Mr. Jaffrey was a gentleman by profession, but
not eminent in his profession."

This modest exhibition of profiles, in which I have attempted to
preserve no chronological sequence, ends with the silhouette of Dr.
Joseph Moses.

If Boston in the colonial days had her Mather Byles, Portsmouth had her
Dr. Joseph Moses. In their quality as humorists, the outlines of both
these gentlemen have become rather broken and indistinct. "A jest's
prosperity lies in the ear that hears it." Decanted wit inevitably loses
its bouquet. A clever repartee belongs to the precious moment in
which it is broached, and is of a vintage that does not usually bear
transportation. Dr. Moses--he received his diploma not from the College
of Physicians, but from the circumstance of his having once drugged
his private demijohn of rum, and so nailed an inquisitive negro named
Sambo--Dr. Moses, as he was always called, had been handed down to us by
tradition as a fellow of infinite jest and of most excellent fancy; but
I must confess that I find his high spirits very much evaporated.
His humor expended itself, for the greater part, in practical
pleasantries--like that practiced on the minion Sambo--but these
diversions, however facetious to the parties concerned, lack magnetism
for outsiders. I discover nothing about him so amusing as the fact that
he lived in a tan-colored little tenement, which was neither clapboarded
nor shingled, and finally got an epidermis from the discarded shingles
of the Old South Church when the roof of that edifice was repaired.

Dr. Moses, like many persons of his time