as the work of an artist. He answered, "No: there were never viler daubs produced by human hand. It was his attempting the art spontaneously, and his perseverance and invincible desire to learn it, that struck me, and convinced me he was made of fit material to follow up any thing he undertook. He was an uncommonly shrewd boy, of the most rough uncouth exterior-the roughest Cornish diamond that ever came out of a mine."

The foregoing mention of Wolcot reminds me, that this witty satirist, while practising as a physician in the west of England, used to visit at the residence of the late Thomas Mitchel, Esq. called Croftwest. He was much solicited by a lady there, no favourite of his own, to write some verses about her; but he turned a deaf ear to her entreaties, until one day after dinner she became so annoyingly pressing, that, taking a pencil and a bit of paper from his pocket, he wrote the following severe epigram, and handed it to her. It must be premised that the lady's complexion was exquisitely fine, but her eyes bad. The doctor's own complexion was a rough mahogany.

Epigram to Miss S

O sweet Nancy S

those beautiful eyes
Were made for the downfal of man;
At the sight of their fire thy true lover fries,
And whizzes like fish in a pan.

O gemini father! how Nature would quake
Were you gifted with every perfection!

I tremble to think what a havock you'd make,
Were you blest with my air and complexion!

It need not be observed, that the loss of her hair never more irreconcilably offended the heroine of the Rape of Lock, than these verses did the lady in question.

The most remarkable character on the whole that I have ever seen, is recalled to my recollection by a paragraph in a recent number of the Revue Encyclopedique, in which a lady in Paris reckoning up the names of men of learning who have lately been taken from the world by death, mentions that which I conclude belonged to the individual whom I am about to notice. His name was Mentelle, by birth a Hungarian. This extraordinary person became known to me by accident; and after I had seen him, the choice of Diogenes in his tub before Alexander the Great, I readily believed, might have been matter of free-will rather than the empty affectation of a philosophical pride. Mentelle did not seem to me more than thirty-three or thirtyfour years of age, well made, with a florid, pleasing, and handsome countenance, brown hair, and a beard peculiarly comely. His conduct and mode of life arose from an insatiable thirst of knowledge. Like the miser in hoarding up gold, he was never easy unless he was acquiring more. No distaste of the pleasures of life, in any form, withheld him from the world, and made him choose a diet of ammunition-bread and water, and a clothing of a coarse flannel jacket and trowsers; but I must give the history of my acquaintance with him first. A gallant naval officer, and a very old friend of mine, wished, during the "piping time of peace," to study mathematics and the modern languages. The advantages of Paris for this purpose beyond any other city in the world, its easy living, splendid public libraries, open to alien as well as native,

out.

and the superiority of its professors in most branches of science, led him thither. He lodged at the house of a teacher of mathematics in the Rue Pigare. Calling one day upon him, he said, "In a summer-house, in the garden below, lives one of the most extraordinary men in the world; he has been living there these two years past; would you like to see him ?" I answered in the affirmative, and we immediately descended the stairs; and crossing the garden came to a small summer-house constructed of boards, about six feet square. In this place, the owner of the garden gave Mentelle leave to reside free of cost. On knocking, the door was opened and I entered, there being but just room enough to stand within it. On his right hand was a box which reached nearly across the room, and occupied, perhaps, one-third of the entire width. In this box was some old blanketing, and across it a plank on which Mentelle was sitting; his feet and legs in the box, for the sake of warmth; his back against the wall of a house which formed the back of the building, the other walls being of wood. He had a sort of tilted plank table before him over the box; on this was a slate and pencil for working his mathematical propositions; the boards had many a loophole stopped with paper, written over in Greek very close, in a remarkably neat character; by this a small portion of the cold air was kept On the left-hand side of the box was an old arm-chair, and the rest of the apartment was piled with large folios and their brethren, down to the smallest size, in complete confusion. From the roof, suspended by a piece of rusty iron-wire, just over the table, hung a piece of old tin plate, bent into a hollow, with a wick, which served for a lamp; a small can lay in a corner, a pitcher of water, and a coarse brown loaf; a ragged cloak hung over the chair. On addressing him in French, my naval friend said, "M. Mentelle speaks English as well as we do, though I am only the second Englishman he has ever seen." And this was true: he spoke it like a native, without hesitation or any foreign accent, and with a softness of which I scarcely thought it capable of being spoken. He could converse with equal fluency in French, German, Sclavonic, Italian, Latin, the ancient and modern Greek, Arabic, and the dialects of his native country besides; and could read and make himself well understood in numerous other languages. He was also master of three thousand Chinese characters. His knowledge of mathematics and the sciences was very extensive. He told me that his thirst of knowledge was so great an appetite, that he was content to sacrifice every other consideration in life to it. He gave one lesson a week in mathematics, which produced him three francs, or about half-a-crown. With this he bought weekly enough coarse ammunition bread for his seven days' consumption at once, that it might grow stale, otherwise it digested too fast. Two or three potatoes boiled in a can over his lamp at night, and eaten with a little oil once or twice a week, constituted his only luxury. He slept five or six hours: if it was cold weather, at full length in the box I have mentioned; if mild, in his chair, not lying down. He studied much at night, and told me he found no ill effects from his mode of living:-he had lived so for twenty years. The luxuries of life in a moderate degree would be very welcome, he said; but then he must waste his precious time in giving lessons to purchase them. He wanted to study more and lose no time; besides, he was happy enough. He was no cynic: he did not despise the good

things of life; but he was contented to resign them for such an object as the foregoing, as he had no means but by labour to obtain them. Čustom had made his way of life no inconvenience to him. He had travelled on foot in every country of Europe, except England. He was intimate with the leading men of science in France, and of the Institute: and a curious figure he cut in his dirty jacket and trowsers, without stockings or shirt, walking arm-in-arm with them through the Boulevards, which was often the case. However such a degradation may startle our dandy professors of all sorts in England; learned men, noble and ignoble, in France, scorn to judge of mind by the coat which covers it.-Listen, mitred universities and crown-chartered societies! He mentioned that some gentlemen of the Institute, his friends, had once supplied him with a profusion of clothing; but he wanted to purchase books; and though he wore them once or twice, he could not resist the temptation of selling them, that he might get the volumes he wished. He accordingly put on his old dress, and took the clothes to a shop for the purpose, congratulating himself on possessing the desired works from the product. The shopkeeper, fearing he had stolen the clothes, gave him in custody to the police. He was ashamed at first to write to any members of the Institute, his friends; and remained in prison a week, employing himself in instructing some of the younger prisoners in reading, till he recollected he was losing time. He then wrote to some persons, who instantly procured his release. He said, that could he have been left alone in the prison to pursue his studies, it would have been a very pleasant place to him, as he feasted every day there without expense on the prison allowance. My friend asked him to dine once or twice with him; but so inured was poor Mentelle to his low diet, that two or three glasses of wine, which he ventured to take, put him into a fever. He desired very much to see England; he had read most of our best writers, and wished to know for what expense he could travel there, living as he lived. He said he thought he might make a pretty long excursion in it for one hundred and fifty francs. I smiled, and told him it was impossible. He said he had travelled all over the Continent at a less rate in proportion than he proposed for England. He knew was a country where every thing was very costly. "I should molest no one," said he; "I should always walk, see the public buildings, works, and country; call on a few learned men, for whom I should carry letters of introduction. I should sleep at nightfal, as I always have, when travelling, in the first wood I came to, on the ground, wrapped in my cloak; and in towns, at the most humble inns. I should live on bread and water, with an egg or two. I think it could be done!" -"I have no doubt, your part could be done, M. Mentelle," I replied; "but poverty is as great a crime in England as robbery. Though the law once said, no man shall be punished without trial or proof of his guilt, that principle is extinct as respects the humble and poor. Your innocent sleep by the road-side will be a crime of itself. The Juge de Paix will send you to prison, or flog you, on the presumption that you are a vagrant, or have been catching his game. You cannot help yourself, for his will is law. If you said you were so and so, and showed a letter or papers in confirmation, he would stare with open unmeaning face at you, and ask if such a story were probable-if any man could be honest with such a coat on his back-give you the lie,

it

and send you to punishment. This would happen with eight out of ten country magistrates into whose hands you might fall. Your knowledge, if you displayed it, would only be deemed an aggravation of your case, because your story would be thought more improbable in consequence. Do not come to England, unless you can come with a coat somewhat in the fashion, or think to travel there without paying five times more for every thing you eat or drink on your road, than the innkeeper really purchases it for." I succeeded, I believe, in preventing Mentelle's visiting this country, and most likely being degraded in a treadmill by some country Dogberry. The last time I saw this extraordinary man, I promised, on my arrival in England, to send him a Sanscrit work, which I was unfortunately not able to procure. He was then studying the Asiatic tongues. Mentelle's powers of reasoning were very great. Sometimes he would take up a wrong argument to show his skill upon it: for when he pleased, he was the best sophist I ever heard. His manners were simple and mild; his countenance beamed with intelligence, and was like some old Italian pictures I have seen. I think, a life such as he led could not endure long. Though his look was healthy, he could not have been strong. I remember he told me that a knowledge of Sclavonic rendered the acquirement of every other modern tongue a comparatively easy task. He said he loved to talk, and to impart knowledge to any who would visit him when he was inclined to repose an hour or two from his studies. He was no anchorite; but was fond of society, if it were such as admitted conversation on literature or science. Poor Mentelle! he is now dust; but perhaps, no man ever loved knowledge so much for herself as he did, or was contented to sacrifice so much for it!

My meeting the foregoing original character, reminds me that I fell in with one equally original by accident some years ago, though I do not mean to degrade poor Mentelle by a comparison as to moral character.

I think it was in the year 1806, that clever rogue, Major Semple Lisle, came to make a complaint to a friend of mine concerned in a newspaper, of something which had been said of him that was untrue. I was present, and particularly noticed his sharp features and pale face, having heard of, but never before seen him. He was very gentlemanly in his inanners, and stayed about five minutes in the room. He was charged with a larceny, or something of the sort, a few days afterwards, and the officers of justice were in pursuit of him. I was crossing a path from the end of what is now the east side of Tavistock-square, which was then fields going into the New-road, and had just reached the little row of houses, which at present faces the east end of St. Pancras new church, when I saw Semple Lisle approach from the New-road, and turn into one of those houses. It was very early in the morning. He did not see me until he had the door in his hand, when he stopped, and, looking me full in the face, seemed alarmed: he recognised me again, and feeling I must know from the newspapers "he was wanted," as the Bow-street runners say, I can never forget his look. He recovered himself instantly, made a gentlemanly inclination of the head, and said, "Sir, I implore you not to say you have seen me."-"You need not fear any thing from me," was my reply: no more passed. I need not say, I kept my word. I fear poverty prompted him to his mean actions, -it is a sad destroyer of your moral feelings!

The Quarterly has a review of Southey's life of Wesley, which I have just been reading. I once saw Wesley. Southey has shown much tact in book-making, by selecting subjects for his works to accommodate numerous readers. It was in a sea-port town, about the year 1790, when I was very young, that, going with some of my playmates to clamber on the pieces of timber landed upon the quay, I was with my companions surprised to find what we held our own domain occupied by a crowd of people, and, on a log far above the rest, towered the figure of the most venerable man I had ever beheld,-I may now say that I have ever seen since. He was addressing the people earnestly. He wore a gown over his thin form, and long white hair waved upon his shoulders. His appearance checked our playful propensities for a moment, and we stood gazing at him in silence. At length the glow of youthful spirits urged us to our old sports: we began to play, at first without making much noise, till growing bolder we clambered over the logs, as we were wont, and I got astride upon a piece of timber huge enough to be the "mast of some great ammiral," far above Wesley's head a second young varlet followed me, and then a third. We were rather behind the preacher, and, as may be guessed, we were soon making noise enough to interrupt him in his discourse. sudden he stopped speaking; and turning round and looking up sternly at us, carrying towards us the gaze of two or three thousand persons, he called out, "Come down, you boys, or be quiet." These words, added to our perception that the eyes of so many persons were upon us, made us ashamed. One and one we slunk down abashed, and bent our steps from the spot.

I have mentioned Opie above. When the pictures of Mr. Angerstein were purchased lately by Government, I went to see those of Hogarth, and was surprised at their beauty. A friend of mine says that Opie and he were struck with their difference from the opinion they had formed of them before they saw them. "I accompanied Opie," said he, "to Christie's, in 1792, to see those pictures. It was the first time that either of us had seen any of Hogarth's original paintings, and I believe both expected to see something coarse, hard, and vulgar. But never was disappointment more agreeable. My companion seemed struck with astonishment. I was impatient for his opinion, and repeatedly pressed him, but I might as well have spoken to a post. He sat before them, examining every part for above half an hour, humming a tune, as was his custom when pleased; but not a word could I get from him. At length he exclaimed: Who has dared to say that this man could not paint!' On our return to his house, and during our walk, he was equally silent; and it was above an hour before I could get him to talk on the subject, when he was rapturous in their praise, and agreed to a remark I made, that poor Hogarth had been born a century too soon, and painted in an age when the taste of the public was incapable of appreciating his merits." Opie visited the pictures every day while they remained at Christie's."