The Merry Past 



passionately fond o£ games of chance, and when he 

 met with any poor person who was a good cribbage 

 player, he would maintain him three or four months, 

 only for the sake of playing with him. 



When he had accumulated any considerable sum, 

 he always purchased with it a life-annuity; one of 

 these he bought of an alderman of Richmond, in 

 Yorkshire, with whom he had long dealt for wine, 

 but after the contract could never be induced to 

 take a drop of his liquor, from apprehension that 

 his friend might shorten his life. 



The annual income of these annuities, and his 

 stipend as rector of Linton, in Yorkshire (which he 

 was near fifty years), amounted to about ;^700 per 

 annum, which he yearly consumed in eccentricities 

 and fantastic projects. He expended many hun- 

 dred pounds on the parsonage house and glebe lands, 

 and was fond of placing Greek and Latin inscrip- 

 tions about the premises. He had his clothes made 

 in London, of the finest cloth that could be procured, 

 and walked with a very long stick, which he called 

 his pastoral staff. He was never married. 



Mr. Smith died in 1777, when he must have been 

 about eighty years old. 



The character of characters, of course, was Old Q, 

 who in his latter years, after he had ceased to take 

 any interest in sport, amused himself by pedestrian 

 parades and short strolls in front of his mansion in 

 Piccadilly. From time to time he made excursions 

 with his phaeton and ponies from the " White Horse 

 Cellars" to Hyde Park Corner, occasionally varied 



253 



