 tone of their conversation only became more animated, without losing any portion of the peculiar jargon which distinguished it when they were perfectly sober.

The discourse especially, which was carried on round Mr. Cartwright after the ladies retired, was, for the most part, of the most purely Calvinistical cast: though some of the anecdotes related might, perhaps, in their details, have partaken more of the nature of miracles than they would have done if fewer champagne corks had saluted the ceiling.

One clerical gentleman, for instance, a Mr. Thompson, who was much distinguished for his piety, stated as a fact which had happened to himself, that, in his early days, before the gift of extempore preaching was fully come upon him, he was one Sabbath-day at the house of a reverend friend, who, being taken suddenly ill, desired Mr. Thompson to preach for him, at the same time furnishing him with the written discourse which he had been himself about to deliver. "I mounted the pulpit," said Mr. Thompson, "with this written sermon in my pocket; but the moment I drew it forth and opened it, I perceived, to my inexpressible dismay, that the handwriting was totally illegible to me. For a few moments I was visited with heavy doubts and discomfiture of spirit, but I had immediate recourse to prayer. I closed the book, and implored that its characters might be made legible to me;—and when I opened it again, the pages seemed to my eyes to be as a manuscript of my own."

This statement, however, was not only received with every evidence of the most undoubting belief, but an elderly clergyman, who sat near the narrator, exclaimed with great warmth, "I thank you, sir,—I thank you greatly, Mr. Thompson, for this shining example of the effect of ready piety and ready wit. Though the cloth is removed, sir, I must ask to drink a glass of wine with you,—and may Heaven continue to you its especial grace!"

There were some phrases too, which, though undoubtedly sanctioned by serious usage, sounded strangely when used in a scene apparently of such gay festivity.

One gentleman confessed very frankly his inability to resist taking more of such wine as that now set before them than was altogether consistent with his own strict ideas of ministerial propriety. "But," added he, "though in so yielding, I am conscious of being in some sort wrong, I feel intimately persuaded at the same time, that by thus freely demonstrating the strength and power
