with men of letters, he thought proper to make his conversation
entirely literary, and in the course of my subsequent more intimate acquaintance
with him, though I knew he had distinguished himself in twenty actions, he never
could be brought to talk of his military feats or experience, but passed them
by, as if they were subjects utterly unworthy of notice.
    I found he believed Dr. Johnson to be the greatest of men; the doctor's
words were constantly in his mouth, and he never travelled without Boswell's
Life. Besides these, he read Cæsar and Tacitus, »with translations, sir, with
translations - I'm thankful that I kept some of my Latin from Grey Friars« - and
he quoted sentences from the Latin Grammar, apropos of a hundred events of
common life, and with perfect simplicity and satisfaction to himself. Besides
the above-named books, the Spectator, »Don Quixote,« and »Sir Charles Grandison«
formed a part of his travelling library. »I read these, sir,« he used to say,
»because I like to be in the company of gentlemen; and Sir Roger de Coverley,
and Sir Charles Grandison, and Don Quixote are the finest gentlemen in the
world.« And when we asked him his opinion of Fielding, -
    »Tom Jones, sir; Joseph Andrews! sir,« he cried, twirling his mustachios. »I
read them when I was a boy, when I kept other bad company, and did other low and
disgraceful things, of which I'm ashamed now. Sir, in my father's library I
happened to fall in with those books; and I read them in secret, just as I used
to go in private and drink beer, and fight cocks, and smoke pipes with Jack and
Tom, the grooms in the stables. Mrs. Newcome found me, I recollect, with one of
those books; and thinking it might be by Mrs. Hannah More, or some of that sort,
for it was a grave-looking volume: and though I wouldn't lie about that or
anything else - never did, sir; never, before Heaven, have I told more than
three lies in my life - I kept my own counsel; - I say, she took it herself to
read one evening; and read on gravely - for she had no more idea of a joke than
I have of Hebrew - until she came to the part about Lady B-- and Joseph Andrews.
And then she shut the book, sir; and you should have