Mendoza knocked down for the first five or six rounds by Humphreys, and seeming almost beat, till the Jews got their money on, when, a hint having been giving him, he began in earnest and soon turned the tables. He described the fight between Gully and "The Chicken." How he rode down to Brickill; how he was loitering about the inn-door, when a barouche and four drove up with Lord Byron and a party, and Jackson, the trainer; how they all dined together, and how pleasant it had been.'"

The principal amusement of Cheselden, the surgeon, was in witnessing pugilistic encounters, and "Barry Cornwall" relates how, in his days, he was a scientific pugilist.

younger

Charles James Fox was fond of theatricals, and at one time lost no opportunity of indulging his taste in this direction. As Trevelyan writes, there is "something comical, and rather taking, in the eagerness with which Fox canvassed the histrionic capabilities of all his friends and relations. Every chance acquaintance, whom he picked up on the Continent, was forth with enlisted in his troop, and thrust straight into the leading business, even though the unlucky recruit might never have learned the lines of Virgil correctly all the while he was at Eton. 'Your sister,' he writes to Fitzpatrick from Florence,

'is a very good actress. Lady Sarah's fame is well known. She acted extremely well in the comedy. Carlisle is not an excellent actor, but will make a very useful one. Peter Brodie is the best manager-prompter in the world. We want another actor or two, but much more another actress. There are few comedies that do not require above two women.' But when," adds his biographer, "under the combined excitement afforded by the prospect of an heir and a seat in Parliament, poor Stephen Fox allowed his dramatic ardour to flag, the stern indignation of his younger brother was positively impressive. 'He does not,' exclaimed Charles, 'so much as even mention acting in any of his letters; but I hope his enthusiasm (for such it was last year) will return. Indeed, it will be very absurd if he has built a theatre for nothing.""

From 1773, however, Fox concerned himself no more with a pastime which was at best but an imitation of an imitation, and gave his undistracted powers to an art in which his success had been as signal, and as instantaneous, as the success of Garrick on the stage. Yet it was no slight advantage "to a great extempore speaker to have at hand an extensive, and dignified, stock of quotations from that branch of literature which is nearly akin to oratory; and for such a speaker it is essential that

the voice, no less than the memory and the reasoning faculty, should be under absolute control." The time evidently had not been lost, for that "laborious discipline in the theory and practice of elocution through which Fox was carried by the disinterested passion for the drama had gained him a command of accent and gesture which, as is always the case with the highest art, gave his marvellous rhetoric the strength and simplicity of nature."

Another lover of the theatre was Dr. Paley. He frequently attended the play—particularly Drury Lane, when Garrick was performing. He generally went into the pit, seating himself as near to the orchestra as possible. Gibbon, again, in his early life, was a theatre-goer; and Oliver Goldsmith, it may be remembered, had a passion for the stage—a taste which it would seem acted as a powerful stimulus to him in developing his literary talents.

"It has been said," writes Faraday's niece, "that my uncle liked to go to the theatre, and it has been concluded that he went very often; but really he went very seldom. He enjoyed a play most when he was tired, and when Mrs. Faraday could go with him. They walked to the theatre, and went to the pit, and it was the greatest rest to him. Sometimes, when she had a friend stay

ing with her, he would go alone to the theatre, at half-price. For many seasons he had a free admission to the opera, and that he enjoyed very much; but he went only a very few times in the year, three or four at the most."

When the opportunity for amusement came, Sir Charles Barry could always throw himself into it with all the delight of a schoolboy. In theatrical entertainments he always took the greatest pleasure, and found in them the most complete relaxation and change of idea.

James Brindley was once persuaded to see a play, but his ideas were so much confused by witnessing it that he declared it had rendered him unfit for business, and he would on no account be present at another performance.

But, with few exceptions, the stage has always been a popular source of recreation, and, from the multiplicity of theatres in recent years, is evidently a fashionable taste much on the increase.

CHAPTER III.

CARD-PLAYING.

Samuel Johnson - Addison - Cowper - Gibbon - Charles James Fox-General Scott-Dr. Parr-Dr. Paley-Sir Robert Peel-Duke of Wellington-Tippoo SmithLord Rivers-Sir Philip Francis-Augustus TopladyJohn Wesley-G. H. Drummond-Charles Lamb-Lord Raglan-Lord Lytton-W. E. Forster-Douglas Jerrold -Charles Dickens-George Grote-Lord StanhopeGeorge C. Lewis-T. H. Buckle-H. Fawcett-John Smeaton-Duke of Queensberry-Southey-Charles Lever-Captain Marryat-John Locke-Dean Milner. TALLEYRAND, whose devotion to whist was extraordinary, remarked of someone who confessed his ignorance of it, that his want of knowledge was preparing him for a miserable old age. Setting aside the evil of making card-playing the occasion for gambling rather than, as it should be, a pleasing social recreation, there can be no doubt that it has been of immense service to our great intellectual workers, as a seductive opiate in their busy life. Indeed, the hour or two spent, in this fashion, has in numerous instances been almost a necessity to many a weary brain overdone by pressure of work, besides, as Talleyrand