22 BIOGRAPHY. 



Cervantes, Washington Irving (himself a disciple of 

 Sterne), Chevy Chase, and literature of a similar character. 

 In the days when he first took up the pen, it was the 

 rather pedantic custom to introduce frequent quotations 

 from the classics into writings, speeches, and sermons, 

 and Waterton followed the custom of the day. Moreover, 

 it is an old Stonyhurst custom to employ such quotations 

 both in conversation and writing, and Waterton could 

 never shake it off. But, when he came to descriptions of 

 scenes in which he had taken part, nothing could be more 

 simple, terse, and graphic, than his style, especially when his 

 sense of humour was aroused. Take for example the very 

 scene which Swainson assailed. There is no fine language 

 in it. There are a few of the inevitable quotations, which 

 might be omitted with advantage, but all the descrip- 

 tion is couched in the simplest and most forcible 

 English, without a redundant word. A better word- 

 picture does not exist in our language. We see before 

 us the captured cayman struggling in the water, the 

 mixed assembly of South American savages, African 

 negroes, a Creole, and an Englishman, all puzzled to know 

 how to get the beast ashore without damaging it, or being 

 wounded themselves. 



Then, there is the amusing cowardice of " Daddy Quashi," 

 the negro, who ran away when suspecting danger, hung in 

 the rear when forced to confront it, and, when it was over, 

 " played a good finger and thumb at breakfast." Water- 

 ton's strong sense of humour prevails throughout the story, 

 but there is not a tinge of vanity. He explains his firm 

 seat on the furious animal's back by mentioning that he 

 had hunted for several years with Lord Darlington's fox- 

 hounds, but he does not tell the reader that in that cele- 

 brated hunt he was considered, next to Lord Darlington, as 

 the best horseman in the field. 



