206 THE COUNTRY CLERGYMAN. 



epoch we shall be all congealed in eternal frost. 

 To protract this unpleasant consummation he 

 ordered a fire in the library of the Athenaeum. 



The sound of crackling wood and coal drew 

 divers loungers from the adjoining drawing-room , 

 and among the rest the Rev. Charles Hastings 

 and Simon Hilary, Esq. of the Albany in Picca- 

 dilly. The two last mentioned gentlemen ex- 

 changed a few words with Mr. Eames, and it is 

 probable that, Englishmen-like, they would have 

 continued unacquainted until the end of their 

 respective existences, had it not been for the lucky 

 invention of a house dinner on the ground-floor 

 in the parlour which faces Pall Mall. Strange 

 as it may appear, three men of tastes and habits 

 ao different, straitway became intimate with each 

 other. Pope says, 



' AU Nature's difference makes all Nature's peace,' 



and so it may fare in the influence of social life. 

 Mr. Eames was sceptical and cautious. The 

 hobby-horse of Dr. Hastings was natural history. 

 Hilary, like Goldsmith, did not know a turkey from 

 a goose, until he had seen it on a dish. He was 

 moreover a decided Londoner. The Clubs in the 

 morning the Parks in the afternoon, and the 

 Theatres and the Opera House in the evening 

 formed the staple commodity of his existence. He 

 gentleman-like perfectly good humoured, and 



