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PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS WITH

FRAGMENTS OF JOURNALS.

HE Quixote Bowles frequently visited at Christ Church. I have heard of him from Biddlecombe and the Jacksons. This man's memory was uncommonly strong; Grose, who loved to play upon his eccentricities, would often affirm that he quoted wrongly. This used to irritate Bowles, he would offer to wager that he was right, rise from dinner, bring the book, and prove to Grose, what he never doubted, that he was exact to a word in his quotation.

Bowles had a great love for pigs; he thought them the happiest of all God's creatures, and would walk twenty miles to see one that was remarkably fat. This love extended to bacon, he was an epicure in it, and whenever he went out to dinner took a piece of his own curing in his pocket, and requested the cook to dress it.

CROWE was going to Jersey in a smuggling vessel, he smoaked and drank with the crew, and pleased them with his conversation. It chanced that they were becalmed on a Sunday, and he stood up and preached an extempore sermon. This completely delighted the smugglers; ever after they and their acquaintance were glad to treat the smuggling parson with his passage.

Soon after my arrival at Christ Church the old Countess of Strathmore paid me a visit. This is a strange woman, every circumstance that occurs to her is miraculous; as the servants lifted her into her carriage

she struck her bonnet against the roof of the porch at our lodgings; the blow would not have injured a butterfly's wing, but she declared that it was Providence who had made her put on a bonnet that morning, which for many months she had not worn. There is an idiot in the workhouse at Christ Church: what is very singular his forehead shows no marks of idiotcy, or any of his countenance but his eyes; they have an open wild look, but it is the wildness of folly not of madness. The old countess believes like the Turks that all idiots are inspired, and she sent for this poor fellow to know whether her husband Bowes would live another year.

I had some difficulty in understanding her toothless tone, but she began by hoping I was very loyal, and expressed a very great respect for men of letters: and yet after she had been listening one day to a conversation upon Sir I. Newton, she suddenly exclaimed, and what is Sir Isaac Newton compared to a nobleman!'

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I am told that she speaks Italian and Spanish with great fluency and elegance: I am certain, however, that she knows very little of the literature either of Spain or Italy. She told me Lope de Vega was her favourite author; that the translation of Don Quixote was one of the best in our language, and that it was ridiculous to talk of the great superiority of the original. Hannah More observed to me once that she never knew the excellence of Don Quixote till she read it in Spanish. I add this as connected with this subject, not to blas

pheme Hannah More by a comparison with Lady Strathmore.

Bowles used to say that if every other book were bad, we might learn every useful art and science from Don Quixote.

I SAW Major Cartwright (the sportsman, not the patriot) in 1791. I was visiting with the Lambs at Hampstead, in Kent, at the house of Hodges his brother-in-law; we had nearly finished dinner when he came in. He desired the servant to cut him a plate A MRS. MORGAN lived with Lady Strathof beef from the side board; I thought the more; she had been useful to her in her footman meant to insult him; the plate was difficulties, and though they were always piled to a height which no ploughboy after quarrelling the old Countess appeared in all a hard day's fasting could have levelled; the parade of grief upon her death. Her but the moment he took up his knife and carriage was covered with black, and she fork and arranged the plate, I saw this was intreated Jackson to let her have a key to no common man. A second and third sup the church, that she might indulge her feel-ply soon vanished: Mr. and Mrs. Lamb, who ings and visit the grave at midnight when she pleased. Rickman picked up an elegy which she had been trying to compose upon this occasion; it began There are, who, though they may hate the living, love the dead,' and two or three vain attempts followed to versify this. Common-place ideas were given in a language neither prose nor poetry; but the most curious part was a memorandum written on the top of the sheet. 'The language to be rich and flowing.' With all this ostentatious sorrow, six weeks after the death of Mrs. Morgan she turned her daughter out of doors because she was attached to a country apothecary.

LORD BUTE was uncommonly haughty towards his equals and superiors. Gustavus Brander called on him one morning, "My Lord, (said he) the Archbishop of Canterbury is in this neighbourhood, and requests permission to see High Cliff." Bute looked sternly up-"I don't know him, Sir!" Jackson, then Curate of Christ Church, begged the same favour for one of his friends, and the reply was, "I have business at Ringwood and may as well do it to-morrow; your friend may see the house then."

GUSTAVUS BRANDER was walking with Emanuel Swedenburg in Cheapside, when the Baron pulled off his hat and made a very respectful bow. Who are you bowing to? said Brander. You did not see him, replied Swedenburg. It was St. Paul, I knew him very well.

had never before seen him, glanced at each other; but Tom and I with school-boys' privilege, kept our eyes riveted upon him with what Dr. Butt would have called the gaze of admiration. 'I see you have been looking at me (said he when he had done); I have a very great appetite. I once fell in with a stranger in the shooting season, and we dined together at an inn; there was a leg of mutton which he did not touch, I never make more than two cuts of a leg of mutton, the first takes all one side, the second all the other; and when I had done this I laid the bone across my knife for the marrow.' The stranger could refrain no

longer-'By God, Sir, (said he) I never

saw a man eat like you.'

This man had strength and perseverance charactered in every muscle. He eat three cucumbers with a due quantity of bread and cheese for his breakfast the following morning. I was much pleased with him, he was good humoured and communicative, his long residence on the Labrador coast made his conversation as instructive as interesting; I had never before seen so extraordinary a man, and it is not therefore strange that my recollection of his manner, and words, and countenance should be so strong after an interval of six years.

I read his book in 1793, and strange as it may seem, actually read through the three quartos. At that time I was a verbatim reader of indefatigable patience, but the odd simplicity of the book amused me; the

importance he attached to his traps delighted me, it was so unlike a book written for the world-the solace of a solitary evening in Labrador; I fancied him blockaded by the snows, rising from a meal upon the old, tough, high-flavoured, hard-sinewed wolf, and sitting down like Robinson Crusoe to his journal. The annals of his campaigns among the foxes and beavers interested me more than ever did the exploits of Marlbro' or Frederic; besides I saw plain truth and the heart in Cartwright's book—and in what history could I look for this?

The print is an excellent likeness. Let me add that whoever would know the real history of the beaver, must look for it in this work. The common accounts are fables.

Coleridge took up a volume one day, and was delighted with its .strange simplicity. There are some curious anecdotes of the Esquimaux. When they entered London with him, one of them cried, putting up his hand to his head, "Too much noise-too much people-too much house-oh for Labrador!' an interesting fact for the history of the human mind.

I HAVE learnt at Christ Church the history of Lady Edward Fitzgerald, the Pamela, of whom such various accounts are given.

The Duke of Orleans, of seditious celebrity, was very desirous of getting an English girl as a companion for his daughter; her parents were wholly to resign her. Forth, secretary to Lord Stormont the then embassador at Paris, was commissioned to find such a child, and he employed Janes, a man of Christ Church, known by the name of Bishop Janes for his arrogance, though he was only a priest. A Bristol-woman, her name Sims, then resided at Christ Church, with an only daughter, a natural child, about four or five years old, of exceeding beauty. The offer was made to this woman: her poverty consented, and her wisdom; assuredly she was right. Some small sum was annually paid her, and she knew the situation of her child.

This is a strange history, and they who have seen Pamela would think any thing interesting that related to her. I once sat next her in the Bath theatre, Madame Sillery was on the seat with her; but, with physiognomical contrition I confess that while my recollection of Pamela's uncommon beauty is unimpaired, I cannot retrace a feature of the authoress. They who study education should read the writings of this woman. I have derived from them much pleasure and much instruction. After reading her journal of their education I almost idolized the young Egalités. Dumouriez taught me how to estimate them justly. Should there ever again be a king in France (which God forbid !) it will be the elder of these young men. He will be a happier and a better man as an American farmer."August 4, 1797.

I MUST add an anecdote of Bishop Janes. He took as his motto, "Gens ingenti nomine." His father kept the little mill behind the church.

RICKMAN, alluding to his electioneering duplicity, said that " Jane bifrons" had been a better motto.

I ENQUIRED of Dr. Stack concerning Thomas Dermody. He was of mean parentage, but his talents were patronized; he was always a welcome visitor at Moira House,and all his misfortunes sprung from his own profligacy. Twice he enlisted as a soldier, and was twice bought off; afterwards he entered the navy-and I could learn nothing more of the fate of Dermody, a man certainly of uncommon genius. He was gloomy at times-and it appeared like the gloom of remorse. They represent him to me as totally devoid of any moral principle. Feb. 19, 1798.

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Signor Cottle riverito

Me n'andro come son ito,
E se voi sublime Vate

Un Poeta non curate

Io del pari vi lo giuro

Non vi cerco e non vi curo. 'Angelo Talassi di Ferrara, Poeta all' attuale servizio della Regina di Portogallo." Aug. 10, 1814.

LAST night, in bed, before I could fall asleep, my head ran upon cards, at which I had been compelled to play in the evening, and I thought of thus making a new pack. Leave out the eights, nines, and tens, as at quadrille.

In their place substitute another suit, ten in number, like the rest, blue in colour, and in name Balls. The pack then consists of fifty. Add two figured personages to make up the number, the Emperor and the Pope.

Play as at whist. Balls take all other suits except trumps, which take Balls. The Emperor and Pope are superior to all other cards, and may either be made equal, and so capable of tyeing each other, and so neutralizing the trick, or to preponderate according to the colour of the trump, the Emperor if red, the Pope if black belonging to no suit, they may be played upon any. If either be turned up, the dealer counts one, and Balls remain the only trumps.

and

The Emperor and Pope, being led, command trumps, but not each other. Trumps also in default of trumps command Balls. If the Emperor and Pope tie each other, the tier has the lead.

Sept. 28, 1824.

Ar seven, the glass was at the freezing point, and the potatoes had been frost nipt during the night. The lake, covered with a thick cloud reaching about half way up Brandelow-the town half seen through a lighter fog-the sky bright and blue.

By the time I reached the road to the lake, the fog was half dissolved, throwing a hazy and yellowish light over Skiddaw, and the vale of Keswick. From Friar's Crag the appearance was singularly beautiful, for between that point and Stable Hill and Lord's Island, the water was covered with a thin, low, floating, and close fitting cloud, like a fleece. Walla Crag was in darkness, and the smoke from Stable Hill

passed in a long current over a field where shocks of corn were standing,-the field and the smoke in bright sunshine. Beyond Lord's Island, the lake was of a silvery appearance along the shore, and that appearance was extended across, but with diminished splendour, the line passing above Ramp's Holm, and below St. Herbert'swhen it met the haze.

The rooks on St. Herbert's were in full chorus. What little air was stirring was a cold breath from the north. That air rippled the lake between Finkle Street and our shore, and where the sun shone upon the ripple through the trees of the walk, and through the haze, the broken reflection was so like the fleecy appearance of the fog from the crag, as for a moment to deceive

me.

Journey Journals.

Friday, 28th June, 1799.-Too late for the Salisbury coach. I mounted, therefore, the box of the Oxford Mail. To a foreigner this would be heroic travelling, the very

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