1830.] George Colman's Random Records. 307 



Westminster supplies a few oddities more. In the following we see 

 the incipient glories of one, who, if he had not been manager of a 

 playhouse, would have driven a mail-coach, or flourished in the four-in- 

 hand. " I was partner with a boy in a phaeton and pair, which we 

 sported in Tothill fields the equipage was of rather rude fabrication, 

 consisting of unpainted pieces of rough wood, clumsily nailed together ; 

 and the cattle were a couple of donkeys, yclept Smut and Macaroni. 

 Those quadrupeds enjoyed no sinecure, being in constant requisition for 

 both draught and saddle ; and when one happened to be lame or sick, 

 the two proprietors rode double upon the other." Westminster, like 

 every ether great school, had its punster and its poet. " The punster was 

 the head master, Dr. Smith, who, when the cook, according to annual 

 custom, came to throw the annual pancake, on Shrove Tuesday, over 

 the high bar which crosses the interior of the building, in which he 

 always failed, by virtue of his office, and for the benefit of the anniver- 

 sary pun ; Dr. Smith regularly once a year cried out, at this exploit, 

 Tlav Kaxov, implying " all bad/' while the pun pari t kakon, convulsed 

 the school with unusual and decorous laughter at the pleasantry of its 

 chief." 



But the poet (the college baker,) deserves a still higher commemora- 

 tion. He comprehended all his desires of the goddess Fortune in four 

 lines, much more expressive than Horace's " Hoc erat in votis," or 

 Swift's, 



" I often wished that I had clear, 

 For life three hundred pounds a year." 



The verse is the happiest combination of pastoral feelings with civic 

 cupidity. 



" If I had a field, a garden, and a gate, 

 I wouldn't care for the Duke of Bedford's estate ; 

 That is, I wouldn't care for his Grace's estate, 

 If I had Covent-garden, Smithfield, and Billingsgate." 



But the world was now beginning to open. The Elder Colman kept 

 up an intercourse with the leading writers of the day ; and his son had 

 the advantage of being introduced at his table to Johnson, Foote, Gib- 

 bon, the Wartons, Garrick, Beauclerk, Reynolds, and others, chiefly of 

 the celebrated " Literary Club." On the dogmatizing of this club, he 

 makes the sensible observations that, " Though it boasted certain indi- 

 viduals of the first order, it was rated too high ; or, rather, society rated 

 itself too low ; for so pusillanimous in that day were educated persons 

 in general, that they submitted to the dominion of a self-chosen few. Of 

 BoswelPs attempts to make Johnson amiable, by saying, that he had a 

 love for little children, ' calling them pretty dears, and giving them 

 sweetmeats,' George altogether doubts, and says, in his characteristic 

 style, " The idea of Johnson's carrying bonbons to give to children, 

 is much like supposing a Greenland bear to have a pocket stuffed with 

 tartlets for travellers." He was at length brought into the for- 

 midable company of Johnson at his father's house in Soho Square. 



" On our entrance, we found Johnson sitting in a fauteuil of rose- 

 coloured satin, the arms and legs of which were of burnished gold. 

 The contrast of the man with the seat was striking. An unwashed 

 coal-heaver, in a vis-a-vis, could not be much more misplaced. He was 

 dressed in a rusty suit of brown cloth, with black worsted stockings; 



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