144 KEW GARDENS 



a " finger-post " on the road to heaven. This 

 eccentric divine was more concerned about 

 angling in the Thames than to be a fisher of men. 

 He did not live at either of his cures, but in 

 shabby lodgings in Soho, going down to Kew 

 only for necessary services, and spending the 

 week-days after the manner of a Bohemian 

 author, perhaps not unknown to Thackeray. At 

 one time he carried on business, sub rosd, as a 

 wine-merchant, in cellars underneath a Methodist 

 chapel, a possible hint for Mr. Sherrick's dealings 

 at Lady Whittlesea's ; but Colton had none of 

 the Rev. Charles Honeyman's suave humbug, 

 while in some respects he may have sat as model 

 for the coarser reprobate who blackmailed 

 Philip Firmin's father. His most unclerical 

 pursuit was gambling, through which he got into 

 some difficulty that packed him off to America 

 in haste. He returned to put in an appearance 

 at his living, which, however, seems now to have 

 lapsed out of his incumbency. He next went 

 to Paris, plunged head over heels into gaming, 

 and blew out his brains in 1832. Yet this was 

 the author of that once popular book Lacon, that 

 among other edifying and sententious sentiments 

 denounces the desperate gamester as doubly 



