Cambridge. He was very remarkable for many eccentricities, and made his likes and dislikes so well known, that they became almost a proverb in his days. There were three things, it was said, which the master of Emanuel loved above all others, viz.:-Good old port! old clothes! and old books! And three things which nobody could persuade him to perform, viz. :-To rise in the morning! to go to bed at night! and to settle an account! When in Cambridge, if an old house was pulled down, the master of Emanuel was always there, in an old blue great-coat and rusty hat. When in London, he was sure to be found in the same garb at an old book-stall; or standing at the corner of a dirty lane, poring through his glass at an old play-bill. It is related, that Pitt once offered him a bishopric; but the social delights of a pipe and a bottle in Emanuel parlour outweighed, in his estimation, the dazzling splendour of a mitre. He is said to have possessed that species of generosity which results rather from inattention than from a knowledge of the use of wealth; but it seems he parted with his money as easily as he obtained it. To his honour be it spoken, many a person in distress experienced his liberality; and it was frequently bestowed on learned men and learned publications, of which he was the unwearied patron.

A FORTUNATE EXPEDIENT.

A gentleman of Trinity College, travelling through France with a friend, in what, on that side of the water, was called a chaise, was very much teased with the mode of travelling, particularly as they made so little progress, and he wanted to reach the next town at a set time. He

tried gentle means of persuasion to induce the postillion to urge his steeds, but in vain. After floundering about in French, till he was out of all patience, for he was no great dab at it, and, withal, not being in possession of any of those emphatic phrases which are equivalent to such as Englishmen are accustomed to vent their anger in, he bethought himself, that, if he was not understood, he might at least frighten the fellow by using some highsounding words; and, collecting all the powers of eloquence of which he was master, with the voice of a stentor, he roared into the ear of the postillion :— "Westmoreland, Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham!" which the fellow mistaking for some tremendous oath, accompanied with a threat, had the desired effect, and induced him to increase his speed.

NOVEL INSCRIPTION.

A bishop of Exeter, having established a poor-house for twenty-five old women, one day being in conversation with Lord Mansfield, soon after, the bishop asked his lordship for an inscription to place in front of the building, upon which his lordship directly took out his pencil, and wrote on a slip of paper as follows :—

"Under this roof

The Lord Bishop of Exeter

Keeps

Twenty-five Women."

QUOTING.

Porson, having spent an evening at a friend's house, a short distance from town, was brought the next morning to visit his friend's neighbour, who had a learned library, and a house full of books; and, after apologizing for his dress and shoes, which were not his own, but supplied with the rest of his clothes by his companion (he having got wet through the night previous), and quoting Horace in two places for the awkwardness of a shoe too tight or too loose, and Theophrastus and Theocritus, he provoked one of the company to observe, "That the way to make the greatest expedition was to run, as the French and Dutch and Scotch women do, with their slippers in their hands, when they are pressed for time;" and quoted Æschylus, where it is said in the Prometheus, "I hurried out of the carriage without sandals." Upon this, Porson started up upon his feet, and, fired, as a strict sportsman is when he hears a strange gun in the preserve which he keeps for his own shooting, no sooner were the three words pronounced, than he gave Stanley's comment and parallel passages upon them; for such was the local mechanism of his memory, that, mention a line in any classic, and he would not only tell what followed, but the subsequent clause. But to proceed he quoted a similar passage from Bion, which, consisting of a broken line, a whole verse, and a broken one, he made the most of them, and thundered them out with a menacing gesture, and a strong emphasis on the last words, “without sandals.". The gentleman, who had innocently begun the match, and had never seen Porson before in a room, was struck with the

earnestness of his manner and apparent displeasure, and determined neither to give up nor sit still, but to follow the professor, and do as he did; he therefore, too, stood upon his legs, and roared out, in the words of the next quotation in Stanley from Theocritus, "Arise, nor stay to put the sandals on your feet." The professor was startled to find his opponent on the same ground with himself, and so near at his heels; but, doubting if it were not by mere accident, he took the next passage from Horace that followed in the commentator, to which he added the remark of Stanley that concludes his note: namely," that water-nymphs went unshod, and for that reason Homer gives Thetis the epithet of silver-footed," and here, for he was in the habit of seeing every body and every thing out, as usual, he had the last word.

THE PETITION.

Dr. Boldero, formerly master of Jesus College, had been treated with great severity by the protectorate for his attachment to the royal cause, as was Herring, at that time Bishop of Ely, and in whose gift the mastership of Jesus College is vested. On a vacancy of the mastership occurring, Boldero, without any pretensions to the appointment, in plain English plucks up his spirits, or, in Homer's language, speaks to his magnanimous soul,* and presents his petition to the bishop. "Who are you?" says his lordship, “I know nothing of you! I never heard of you before!" "My lord," replied Boldero, "I have suffered long and severely for my at

είπε προς μεγαλητορα θυμον.

tachment to my royal master, as well as your lordship, and I believe your lordship and I have been in all the gaols in England." "What does the fellow mean!" exclaimed the bishop, "Man! I never was confinəd in any prison but the Tower!" And, my Lord," said Boldero, "I have been in all the rest myself!" The bishop's heart was melted at this reply, and he granted Boldero's petition.

66

THE PRESIDENT

Of a certain college in Cambridge was one evening listening at the door of one of the under-graduates of his college, suspecting something improper to be proceeding within. The student, by some means having acquired a knowledge of the snare, taking the pot de chambre in his hand, he suddenly opened his door and discharged the contents over the president, accompanied with a kick, exclaiming, at the same time, "Get down, you rascal! I'll tell the president of your listening at my door!"

STOMACHUM.

When Morton, afterwards Bishop of Durham, stood for the degree of D.D. at Cambridge, he advanced something which was displeasing to the professor, who exclaimed, with some warmth, "Commosti mihi stomachum!" To which Morton replied, "Gratulor tibi, reverende professor, de bono tuo stomacho, canabis apud me hâc nocte."