256 Anecdotes and Conversations. [SEPT. 



game invented by Palamedes, and not chess ; averring in his own person, 

 that it had often made him forget his supper till it was quite cold. He 

 confessed that he played, on an average, twelve hundred hits in a year; 

 and such a hold had the game on his imagination, that he not unfre- 

 quently illustrated his discourse by metaphors taken from its technicalities. 

 On 0ne occasion, I remember, when he was sore pressed in an argument 

 by a malignant, who had clearly proved an oversight in the minister's 

 operations, which might have ruined the campaign if properly taken 

 advantage of, he triumphantly replied, with a voice of thunder, " Like 

 enough, Sir; every body makes mistakes humanum est errare. But, 

 Sir, a blot whatever you may think of the matter, is no blot till it is hit :" 

 the reply was unanswerable. 



The archdeacon's temper was essentially equable and bland. Two 

 things only were apt to disturb his equanimity ; and these were, a whig 

 and a papist. Hence he was greatly puzzled what consideration to give 

 to the Scotch rebels. Their attachment to divine right and their martyr- 

 dom in defence of the Pretender, he could not deny, were most commen- 

 dable : but then, that Pretender was a papist, and the Pope was Antichrist. 

 I remember he told me in a confidential conversation, in which he laid 

 open his whole heart, that he never could make up his mind concerning 

 those a7T|>tw/zaTo< politicians; but, he added, in a half" forgiving tone, 

 " the dogs loved their king after all." 



The archdeacon, like many of the Cambridge men of his day, was 

 given to tobacco ; and never said better things, than when he puffed care 

 away after dinner. Had he lived to the present times, he would have 

 doubtless discouraged the modern innovation of cigars, which have so 

 greatly contributed to the decay of mathematics in the university. The 

 true Virginia, as he himself used to say, " ascended into the brain," and 

 "favoured contemplation;" whereas every body knows, that the boys 

 who smoke cigars, never trouble themselves to think at all : and this is the 

 reason, perhaps, why the Spaniards have never thrown off the " slough 

 of a slavish superstition.'- 1 My mother, who by long intercourse with the 

 archdeacon, did not hold him in that awe, with which the females of the 

 parish were accustomed to regard him (so much does familiarity breed 

 contempt), used often to rate him soundly, for what she called his beastly 

 habit of smoking before females : and she once carried her vituperations 

 so far, that a shyness took place between them ; the Doctor fulminating 

 against her the epigram 



" Aspide quid pejus? tigris ; quid tigride ? Dsemon, 

 Da&mone quid? mulier ; quid muliere? nih'il." 



Which being interpreted, my mother vowed she could never forgive. We 

 were all sorry for this breach, and, with some difficulty, over-persuaded 

 her to apologize. This she did, with a truly feminine resignation ; at the 

 same time, presenting the doctor with a silver tobacco-box, with his own 

 portrait engraved on the lid, with his pipe in his mouth ; to which I fur- 

 nished the motto, t( ex fumo dare luce?n." The good man was highly 

 pleased with the compliment; and gallantly saluting the back of the 

 offended lady's hand, he assured her, that he was well pleased so un- 

 pleasant a dispute should end in smoke. The next Sunday, I remarked 

 that he preached from the text, that the price of a good woman was above 

 rubies. 



In the summer of 1786, all the world, in our part of the country, went 



