Colonel Hugh Hill, his son-in-law, says that his powers of con- 

 versation were remarked as most extraordinary, being equally rich 

 on all subjects, and interesting alike to old and young, male or 

 female. He had the talent of adapting his conversation to his 

 audience. " I have known," adds Colonel Hill, " children to leave 

 their toys and their juvenile gambols to listen with delight to his 

 numerous stories and sketches from history ; for he was not only 

 conversant with the history of all civilized nations, but even of the 

 most savage and least known : his mind and his memory were so 

 replete with varied knowledge, that he had only to make choice of 

 what he deemed at the time best suited to the taste of his hearers, 

 and in the selection he never failed." 



Yet with such qualifications he was not a monopolist of con- 

 versation ; he acted on the apothegm of Democritus, that he who 

 is too much a talker defrauds his hearers : he could be a patient 

 listener, and on subjects that he understood much better than the 

 speaker.- While he was resident in London, he occasionally met 

 Dr. Samuel Johnson in company. On one occasion the Doctor 

 was pronouncing, in his pompous manner, a dissertation on the in- 

 vention and manufacture of gunpowder ; he concluded by observing 

 to Mr. Kirwan (then unknown to him), " Perhaps you know some- 

 thing about it;" to which Mr. Kirwan replied, " Yes, I have both 

 made it and written upon it." The Doctor seemed not a little 

 abashed when he found that he had ventured too far, and that his 

 modest hearer was much better acquainted with the subject than 

 himself. 



It happened on another occasion, when the trade-winds were the 

 subject of conversation, that Dr. Johnson gave his opinion in his 

 usual manner, ex cathedrd. Mr. Kirwan ventured to differ with 

 him, to the amazement of the company, and brought forward such 

 an irresistible torrent of arguments, that the learned Doctor never 

 after entered into a discussion with Mr. Kirwan, although he Avas 

 little in the habit of succumbing to the opinion of others ; for it 

 was said of him, that " if his pistol missed, he knocked his oppo- 

 nent down with the but-end." 



Although modest and unobtrusive, Mr. Kirwan was not without 

 feeling for himself that respect which was evinced for him by the 



