.' Yet he seemed the very
man he represented, as fat, pert, and dull as it was possible to be. I
have not seen him of late:--

For Kais is fled, and our tents are forlorn.

But I thought of him the other day, when the news of the death of
Buonaparte came, whom we both loved for precisely contrary reasons, he
for putting down the rabble of the people, and I because he had put
down the rabble of kings. Perhaps this event may rouse him from his
lurking-place, where he lies like Reynard, 'with head declined, in
feigned slumbers!'(3)

I had almost forgotten the Southampton Tavern. We for some time took
C---- for a lawyer, from a certain arguteness of voice and slenderness
of neck, and from his having a quibble and a laugh at himself always
ready. On inquiry, however, he was found to be a patent-medicine seller,
and having leisure in his apprenticeship, and a forwardness of parts, he
had taken to study Blackstone and the _Statutes at Large._ On appealing
to Mounsey for his opinion on this matter, he observed pithily, 'I don't
like so much law: the gentlemen here seem fond of law, but I have law
enough at chambers.' One sees a great deal of the humours and tempers of
men in a place of this sort, and may almost gather their opinions
from their characters. There is C----, a fellow that is always in the
wrong--who puts might for right on all occasions--a Tory in grain--who
has no one idea but what has been instilled into him by custom
and authority--an everlasting babbler on the stronger side of the
question--querulous and dictatorial, and with a peevish whine in his
voice like a beaten schoolboy. He is a great advocate for the Bourbons
and for the National Debt. The former he affirms to be the choice of the
French people, and the latter he insists is necessary to the salvation
of these kingdoms. This last point a little inoffensive gentleman among
us, of a saturnine aspect but simple conceptions, cannot comprehend. 'I
will tell you, sir--I will make my propositions so clear that you will
be convinced of the truth of my observation in a moment. Consider, sir,
the number of trades that would be thrown out of employ if it were done
away with: what would become of the porcelain manufacture without it?'
Any stranger to overhear one of these debates would swear that the
English as a nation are bad logicians. Mood and figure are unknown to
them. They do not argue by the book. They arrive at conclusions through
the force of prejudic