NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 343 



gion, was so much delighted at finding that for three successive Sundays, 

 he had drawn tears from an old woman in his congregation, that he 

 solicited an interview with her, when the following conversation ensued. 

 ** Pray, my good woman," said he, 'Uell me what part of my three last 

 sermons went so near to your heart, as to draw forth such a plentiful 

 flow of tears, as I was pleased to perceive you shed." Her answer was 

 to this effect, for I despair of giving it in the original. *' That having 

 been deprived during the last three years, of the valuable services of her 

 husband, who had died, her only means of support arose from those of a 

 donkey, and he was now dead. That the poor animal was a great 

 favourite of both of them, and that they never approached his stable but 

 he manifested his affection for them by one of his loudest brays ; and, 

 finally, that the preaching of his reverence so much resembled his bray- 

 ing, that it went to the very core of her heart to hear him." 



We have high classical authority for saying, that one good story is 

 generally followed by another, and we had many such this night. A 

 compliment, however, was paid to one which I told, that was never ex- 

 perienced by me before — in fact it elicited three rounds of applause. 

 But the credit is not to me. It was John Warde's celebrated anecdote 

 of the boy whom the quack doctor cured of two of the greatest infirm- 

 ities of our nature — a lying tongue and a short memory — by one 

 single pill. 



Of the conversational powers of the Captain, I have already spoken 

 in praise. He amused us greatly this evening with some of his quaint 

 remarks, as also with several anecdotes relating to some of the noted 

 characters in the ring, in days in which he gave it his support. Amongst 

 others, of the celebrated Bill Gibbons. ** Did you never see none of 



