Poor as was the jest, we all laughed heartily, for its utterer was an acknowledged wag, and a rich man's tinsel will always pass current for genuine gold.

"Hill," resumed the dramatist, still gazing from the window, "you can never be dull here! plenty of society, eh? watermen and carmen, Arcades omnes, ever exchanging, in the same gentle strains that I now hear Amoebæan lays worthy to be immortalised with the piscatory eclogues of the poet. How pastoral, too, the river's bank when the tide is out, and primroses and violets give their odours to the air in the form of drowned puppies and kittens! On a summer's evening I suppose you wander occasionally among yonder sugar hogsheads on the quay, singing aloud through circling sweets I freely rove,' or listening for the musical pattens of some housemaid Amaryllis. Well, well, don't look sheepfaced. Ne sit ancillæ tibi amor pudori. Queenhithe is altogether a scene for lovers; and hark! don't I hear the feathered choir, the voice of birds?"

"Birds, sir, we have no birds here; the sound that you hear is the creaking of the cranes."

"Well, my good friend, and cranes are birds, arn't they?"

The wag was now the first to set the example of the laugh, in which we all heartily joined, and ere it had subsided dinner was announced.

In addition to Hill's besetting sin of imagining all his own geese, and all the geese of all his friends to be swans, he was an inexhaustible Quidnune and gossip, delighting more especially to startle his hearers by the marvellous nature of his intelligence, not troubling his head about its veracity, for he was a great economist of truth; and striving to beat down and crush every doubt by ever-increasing vehemence of manner and extravagance of assertion. If you strained at a gnat he would instantly give you a camel to swallow; if you boggled at an improbability he would endeavour to force an impossibility down your throat, rising with the conscious necessity for exertion, for he was wonderfully demonstrative, until his veins swelled, his grey eyes goggled, his husky voice became inarticulate, his hands were stretched out with widely disparted fingers, and the first joint of each thumb was actually drawn backwards in the muscular tension occasioned by his excitement. Embody this description in the figure of a fat, florid, round little man, like a retired elderly Cupid, and you will see Hill maintaining a hyperbole, not to say a catachresis, with as much convulsive energy as if he believed it! And yet it is difficult to suppose that, deceived by his own excitement, and mistaking assertion for conviction, he did not sometimes succeed in imposing upon himself, however he might fail with his hearers; otherwise he would hardly wind up, as I have more than once heard him, by exclaiming,

"Sir, I affirm it with all the solemnity of a death-bed utterance, of a sacramental oath."

Blinded by agitation and vehemence he could no longer see the truth, and went on asseverating until he fancied that he believed what he was saying. This, however, was in the more rampant stage of the disorder: there was a previous one, in which he would look you sternly in the face, and in a tone that was meant to be conclusive, and to inflict a deathblow upon all incredulity, would emphatically ejaculate,

"Sir, I happen to know it!"

If this failed, if his hearer still looked sceptical, he would immediately play at double or quits with his first assertion, adding a hundred per cent. to it, and making the same addition to the positiveness with which he supported it, until he gradually reached the rabid state, in which he would not condescend to affirm any thing short of an impossibility, or to pledge any thing short of his existence to its literal veracity.

This would seem to involve a reductio ad absurdum from which it was impossible to escape; but our Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was an adroit dodger, and when he saw that his position, spite of his most solemn averments, was no longer tenable, he would abandon it without beat of drum, take up some other which no one had ever disputed, and begin to defend it with an assumed ardour, as if the new ground had been all along the sole object of controversy. It was a standing joke with Hill's friends to decoy him into some extravagant statement which "he happened to know;" to see him lash himself into fury as he attempted to flounder and bluster out of the meshes in which he became every moment more deeply entangled; and to mark the quietude with which he would finally desert the falsehood for which he had battled so fiercely, and entrench himself in some totally irrelevant truism which he knew to be unassailable.

An opportunity of playing upon this foible soon occurred, and Colman was not the man to suffer it to escape. After dinner our host placed upon the table some Vin de Jurançon, introducing it with his usual flourish of blatant trumpets, as the growth of a small district on the northern frontiers of Spain, of impossible obtainment, and of a most exquisite flavour. After tasting it, universal assent, a very rare sequence to one of Hill's averments, was instantly granted to the latter clause, and the dramatist, whose potent Bacchanalian sympathies were instantly aroused, exclaimed, as he smacked his lips and refilled his glass,

"Hill, this is really capital stuff! where can I get some of it ?" "Nowhere, sir! it's not to be had for love or money, sir; they have none of it in Carlton House; the prince would give his ears for a bottle, but there's not one, not a pint of it to be had in all England, for I bought up the whole of the only lot that was imported."

"Glad to hear it, Hill, for I suppose you possess a good quantity." "Sir, I have twenty-seven dozen, and eight bottles in that closet." "Indeed! I should not have thought it would hold so many. Are you quite pellucid, quite clear as to the quantity; sure you have made no mistake?"

"You're right, you're right! I recollect now, I have made a mistake, it was forty-seven dozen and eight bottles."

"What in that small closet? Impossible, my dear Hill!"

Two or three of the company, anxious to see the maximum to which these glass-men in buckram might be multiplied, maintained that the quantity mentioned might easily be stowed away in the closet, small as it undoubtedly was; whereupon our Amphitryon, with a brow-beating air, and a tone that were meant to challenge further doubt, exclaimed—

"This is not a matter for discussion, it is a question of fact, and what I have asserted I happen to know, d'ye hear me, sir, I know it, for I counted the bottles twice over this very morning, twice, I tell you. Is that evidence, and does it, or does it not establish the fact?"

A menacing look was cast around the room to see who would dare to pick up the gauntlet, but we all waited for Colman, who quietly asked,—

"Have you altered, or put any additional shelves in that closet since you showed me your scarce books in it last week?”

"No; I have only taken out the books and put in the wine."

"Then, if you will produce the key and open the door of the closet, which you cannot refuse to do, I will not only pledge myself to show that you have not more than four dozen and eight bottles, but I will prove by measurement, the physical impossibility of its containing more than that quantity."

Numeration of bottles and measurement of shelves were so little congenial to Hill's frame of mind, that he saw the necessity for changing the venue, as the lawyers say, and instantly exclaimed, with an air of indignant surprise,

Well, sir, and would you deny that four dozen and eight bottles of Vin de Jurançon, is a capital stock? Will you name me the wine-merchant in all London that can supply you such another stock? Pooh, pooh! don't tell me. I know what I'm talking about. Do you know such a wine-merchant in all England, do you, or you, or you? No, not one of you. I was quite sure of it. That is all that I ever maintained, and you now admit it. Ah! I was quite sure you would end by acknowledging all that I have ever asserted. Pooh! pooh! I happened to know it."

A general laugh attested our sense of this Protean substitution, and the butt of our merriment, notwithstanding the large reduction we had already effected in his nominal stock of wine, thought it wise to propitiate us by fresh and frequent extracts from the measurement four dozen and eight.

The lion of the night now betook himself so sedulously to his potations that he had no leisure to roar for our amusement, and at a later hour our host, knowing his habits, plied him with hot brandy-and-water, under the influence of which he finally fell fast asleep in his arm-chair. While Homer was thus nodding, the Mæcenas of Queenhithe entertained us with a partial recapitulation of the "many hundreds" of literati, artists, actors, and scholars, particularly and proudly specifying Professor Porson, who had dined with him at different times; or, to use his own words, who had had their legs under his mahogany, rather a homely version of Horace's sub iisdem trabibus.

Some weeks after this dinner-party, I accompanied Hill in a morning visit to Colman at Melina Place, in the rules of the Bench, in which locality his pecuniary embarrassments had long compelled him to reside. He invited us to return and sup with him, but an engagement unfortunately prevented my compliance, and I never afterwards had an opportunity of personally encountering George Colman, the younger.

Pleasant and kind-hearted as he was, Colman was by no means free from the petulance of the irritable race, an impeachment which will be admitted by any of my readers (alas! they can be but few!), who may recollect the first appearance of the "Iron Chest," in 1796. The audience were put out of humour by the prosy character of Old Adam Winterton, personated by Mr. Dodd; but the author, imagining that the partial failure of the first night was attributable to the tame acting of John Kemble, rashly penned a most sarcastic and illiberal attack upon him, which he published in a preface to the play. His cooler judgment, however, induced him to suppress it, a confession of its injustice, which induced a "candid and discerning public" to pay thirty and even forty shillings for the first edition! years afterwards, I remember telling Hill that I wanted a copy for a friend, and had been unable to find one.

Some

May.-VOL. LXXX. NO. CCCXVII.

E

"Not find one! no, of course you can't. Why didn't you come to me? I happen to have scores, hundreds."

I took one copy, and left the remaining hundreds in nubibus. Colman afforded another instance of his touchiness, by his furious onslaught on the reviewers, who, in noticing his poems, entitled "My Night Gown and Slippers," had justly condemned the ribaldry which polluted the writer's wit, and referring to his mature years, had applied to him the reproach addressed to Falstaff, "How ill gray hairs become a fool and jester!" Here he had not only a bad, but an indefensible case, and his anger and vituperation of his judges only served to confirm the justice of their sentence. Strange! that the man who, as a writer of harmless farces had sheltered himself under the nom de guerre of Arthur Griffinhoof, should not only avow, but attempt to defend an objectionable volume of poems. Stranger still, that the same writer who had allowed himself so very broad a latitude in his own plays should, when he became dramatic licenser, exercise a squeamish fastidiousness in supervising the works of others, which could hardly have been surpassed by a Puritan Mawworm. As if for the purpose of illustrating Swift's position, that a nice man is a man of nasty ideas, his prurient delicacy discovered immodest meanings where none were dreamt of by the writers; the name of the deity, however reverently introduced, was instantly expunged; and all sorts of swearing, even where conventional usage sanctioned it as a venial expletive, was blotted out by the sanctimonious censor. Apropos to this rigour, I remember an anecdote of my friend Tom Dibdin, some one talking to him about his forthcoming play, asked him where the scene was laid, "At Rotter," was the reply.

"Rotter! where's that? I never heard of such a place."

"Nor I either," resumed the playwright, "it was Rotter-dam, but Colman has struck out the dam."

Though I saw so little of Colman himself I was well acquainted with the majority of his dramatic works, having been present on the first night's performance of the "Iron Chest," in 1796; of "Bluebeard," in 1798; of the "Poor Gentleman," in 1802; of "John Bull," in 1805; of the "Heir-at-Law," "Blue Devils," the "Review," and "Love laughs at Locksmiths." For a long term of years, indeed, I was never absent from a first night's performance at either of the patent theatres. Heu! quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore! I, who in those days always had an admission-ticket for the season, and by an annual retaining fee generally secured the best seat in the best box, now suffer many a year to elapse without ever entering a theatre!

Before I close this brief and slight notice of George Colman, the younger, let me communicate to my readers the pleasure that I myself feel in recording that his widow, the once beautiful and fascinating actress, Mrs. Gibbs, is still living in good health, at one of our fashionable watering-places. If I cannot say in the inflated language applied by Dr. Johnson to Garrick, that her retirement from the stage "diminished the public stock of harmless pleasure and eclipsed the gaiety of nations," I venture to predict that she, whose rare histrionic talent afforded so much delight to playgoers in her youth and maturity, will receive their cordial and unanimous wishes for the extension of her old age, in the enjoyment of health and happiness.

ADRIEN ROUX;

OR,

THE ADVENTURES OF A COURIER.

BY DUDLEY COSTELLO, ESQ.

CHAP. XII.

I LEAVE SIR JOHN CHUBB'S SERVICE-MONSIEUR CHASSEPOT BECOMES MY FRIEND HIS MÉNAGE IN THE RUE DU TABOURG.

THE excitement caused by this adventure was very great throughout Orleans on the following day; indeed, it may be questioned whether any thing so stirring had befallen the city since its capture by the Pucelle. The attempted robbery was an affair common enough, but combined with abduction it assumed a highly romantic aspect. The delinquents, moreover, were gentlemen who had figured conspicuously but disadvantageously in the criminal annals of their country, and their capture was looked upon as a remarkable event. The police swaggered immediately, and Felix Chassepot-talkative on all subjects--had an amazing deal to say on this, but I was in point of fact the real hero of the story, and for four-and-twenty hours my promptitude and acuteness were the theme of universal discussion at the Hôtel de la Poste. Meanwhile a procèsverbal was drawn up, and Messieurs Binoche and Durastel were sent to prison to await their trial at the next assize.

Sir John Chubb was, to use his own expression, in a decided "fix.” His share in the affair was such as reflected no credit either on his sagacity or his dignity. Had he exercised the commonest discretion he would not have been the dupe of two fripons, and if he had kept himself sober, he might, even at the eleventh hour, have availed himself of my warning. People whom you serve in spite of themselves are seldom the most grateful in return, especially if their vanity be wounded in the act. This was the case with Sir John, and his mortification at the exposé which, if he had listened to me, he might have avoided, completely outbalanced his recognition of my services at Montl'héry. Besides, with a feeling common to vulgar minds, he considered that he had settled that question by the money which he gave me, and I soon perceived that his friendly feeling had abated. For my own part, when I came to think over the matter, I could perceive nothing very alluring in the perspective. There was "confusion in the camp of King Agramant." Miss Eliza Chubb, the victim of parental severity on one hand, and of betrayed affections on the other, was in a state bordering on despair and almost dissolved in tears; her confidante, Miss Maddox, louder in her sorrow, was no less demonstrative in the denunciation of "perfidious man," counts, colonels, valet de chambres, and "whipper snapper boys of fifteen," being specially designated in her commination; and from the moment Sir John woke on the morning after the discovery, he had done nothing but quarrel with Lady Chubb, whose temper, never of the best, was by no means improved in consequence.

It was, therefore, little to my surprise or regret-under the circum