17() THE TABLE 



nology, by telling them the anecdote of Bezzant, now no more, who 

 lived near Stratford-upon Avon, and was asked, if he had ever happened 

 to fall in with Shakspeare ? to which our well-beloved and recollected 

 Richard answered, " that he was very little in the town, as he resided 

 with his aunt, a mile away from it ; but that it was possible he might 

 have sometimes met him with the hounds/' 



The Oxonians shortly were reduced to a more flippant theme the 

 censure of the Roman Catholic religion, which O'Sullivan, a fiery Papist, 

 as pertinaciously defended. The superficial and ill-levelled strictures of 

 the students were certainly no formidable arguments ; but, as they were 

 uttered with a vehemence approaching bigotry, from which indeed they 

 emanated, and expressed as the opinions of the alma mater of our coun- 

 try, an English gentleman, who hitherto had been a silent listener to 

 the follies of the day, professed himself a member of the university, and 

 begged distinctly to protest against the dictum of the youthful pair, 

 which breathed such gross intolerance and insupportable impeachment. 

 " I am a Protestant," observed the gentleman ; " a conscientious one ; 

 but utterly averse from the proscription of the creed of others: an 

 honest man's religion is a good one ; and he is at heart the most a Chris- 

 tian, who has the largest fund of charity within it." The Castiliari, who 

 understood English, was pleased at the remark, and turning to his 

 hitherto untried Oxonian neighbour, said, " Piensa sabiamente* y se ex- 

 plica claramente." "No parli Frangais" was the student's answer, with 

 the same contented smile which had clothed the witless visage of his 

 fellow ignoramus. " That gentleman is speaking Spanish, sir," my 

 uncle said ; and was almost tempted, so opposite it seemed, to tell the 

 story of a countryman of ours, who, travelling in the West of England, 

 observed upon a pane of glass, " Carl Von Schlaezer,'a native of Hesse 

 Darmstadt;" and, adding to the information given, wrote beneath, with 

 equal taste and liberality, " a blasted Frenchman" 



The wine and spirit had, by this time commenced its operation, and 

 the English spoken at the table, and which was now occasionally inter- 

 cepted with a loud singultus, vulgarly called hiccough, was about as 

 intelligible as the French had been from the same lips, in the early 

 stage of the festivity. The man-milliner, with the immense mustachios, 

 was relating the battles he had been engaged in, and drinking bumpers 

 to heroes dead and living, talking politics with vehement dictation, 

 subverting thrones and dynasties with the foresight of Francis Moore, 

 or Matthew Lansberg, and proving himself by different facts, to have 

 been in the four quarters of the globe upon the self same day. The mid- 

 shipman was snoring with his chin upon his bosom, an inch or two of 

 pig-tail depending from his mouth, which served as a conductor for 

 that saliva, which is wont to flow from slumbers like his own ; while 

 Mr. Killjoy was elaborately predicting his decease by apoplexy. The 

 Irishman had taken his departure with a knowing wink, which inti- 

 mated but we know the pleasures of a man of Mr. O'Sullivan's consti- 

 tution. The long Scotch doctor, who had remained as dumb 



" As the mute marble habitant 

 Of the lone halls of Ishmonie." 



had very nearly settled his litre of bierre blanche ; the burgomaster was 

 emitting clouds of smoke from his ecume de mer, and gallantly keeping 



* He thinks deeply and expresses himself clearly. 



