ing too severe upon people, he takes it with
the greatest kindness, and often alters what we do not like. I hardly
ever, indeed, met with a sweeter temper than his. He is rather hasty,
and when he has not time for an instant's thought, he will sometimes
return a quick answer, for which he will be sorry the moment he has said
it. But in a conversation of any length, though it may be on subjects
that touch him very nearly, and though the person with whom he converses
may be very provoking and extremely out of temper, I never saw him lose
his. He never uses this superiority, as some do, for the purpose
of irritating another still more by coolness; but speaks in a kind,
good-natured manner, as if he wished to bring the other back to temper
without appearing to notice that he had lost it.

"He at one time took a very punning turn, and we laid a wager in books,
my Mysteries of Udolpho against his German Theatre, that he could not
make two hundred puns in one evening. He did it, however, in two hours,
and, although they were of course most of them miserably bad, yet it was
a proof of great quickness.

"Saturday, February 26, 1831--At dinner we talked of the Grants. Tom
said he had found Mr. Robert Grant walking about in the lobbies of the
House of Commons, and saying that he wanted somebody to defend his place
in the Government, which he heard was going to be attacked. 'What did
you say to him?' we asked. 'Oh, I said nothing; but, if they'll give me
the place, I'll defend it. When I am Judge Advocate, I promise you that
I will not go about asking anyone to defend me.'

"After dinner we played at capping verses, and after that at a game in
which one of the party thinks of something for the others to guess at.
Tom gave the slug that killed Perceval, the lemon that Wilkes squeezed
for Doctor Johnson, the pork-chop which Thurtell ate after he had
murdered Weare, and Sir Charles Macarthy's jaw which was sent by the
Ashantees as a present to George the Fourth.

"Some one mentioned an acquaintance who had gone to the West Indies,
hoping to make money, but had only ruined the complexions of his
daughters. Tom said:

Mr. Walker was sent to Berbice
By the greatest of statesmen and earls.
He went to bring back yellow boys,
But he only brought back yellow girls.

"I never saw anything like the fun and humour that kindles in his eye
when a repartee or verse is working in his brain.

"March 3, 1831.--Yesterday morning Hannah an