dictory materials was he composed, that his antipathy to an English pun was so extravagant as to be truly ridiculous. This peculiarity has been attributed, but we speak merely from common report, to a disgust which he contracted for this species of spurious wit, during his frequent intercourse with the Johnians, a race of students who have, from time immemorial, been identified with the most profligate class of punsters. Be this, however, as it may, we are inclined to believe that a person who resides much amongst those who are addicted to this vice, unless he quickly takes the infection, acquires a sort of constitutional insusceptibility, like nurses, who pass their lives in infected apartments with perfect safety and impunity. His favourite, and we might add his only pursuit, beyond the circle of his profession, was the study of antiquities. He was, as we have already stated, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries; had collected a very tolerable series of ancient coins, and possessed sufficient critical acumen to distinguish between Attic ærugo, and the spurious verdure of the modern counterfeit. Often had he undertaken an expedition of a hundred miles to inspect the interior of an

ancient barrow, or to examine the mouldering fragments of some newly discovered monument; indeed, like the connoisseur in cheese, bluemould and decay were the favourite objects of his taste, and the sure passports to his favour; for he despised all living testimony, but that of worms and maggots. A coin with the head of a living sovereign passed through his hands with as little resistance as water through a sieve, but he grasped the head of an Antonine or Otho with insatiable and relentless avarice. Mr. Twaddleton's figure exceeded the middle stature, and was so extremely slender as to give him the air and appearance of a very tall man. He was usually dressed in an oldfashioned suit of black cloth, consisting of a single-breasted coat, with a standing collar, and deep cuffs, and a flapped waistcoat; but so awkwardly did these vestments conform with the contour of his person, that we might have supposed them the production of those Laputan tailors who wrought by mathematical principles, and held in sovereign contempt the illiterate fashioners who deemed it necessary to measure the forms of their customers; although it was whispered

lage that the aforesaid mathematical artists were better acquainted with the angles of the Seven Dials, than with the squares of the west end. They farther surmised that the vicar's annual journey to London, which in truth was undertaken with no other object than that of attending the Anniversary of the Society of Antiquaries, on Saint George's day, was for the laudable purpose of recruiting his wardrobe. If the coat, with its straggling and disproportioned suburbs, possessed an amplitude of dimensions which ill accorded with the slender wants of his person, this misapplied liberality was more than compensated by the rigid economy exhibited in the nether part of his costume, which evidently had not been designed by a contemporary architect; that vestment which is never alluded to in polished society but through the medium of ingenious circumlocution, stuck as closely to the part it was destined to protect, and as faithfully represented it, as the most zealous member ever adhered to the interests of an independent borough. Not so his shoes, which, for the accommodation of those unwelcome parasites, vulgarly called corns, were constructed in the form of a battledore, and dis

played such an unbecoming quantity of leather, that, as Ned Hopkins, a subaltern wit of the village ale-house, observed, "however economical their parson might appear, he was undoubtedly supported in extravagance." In a village like Overton, where there resided no less than seven discontented old maids, this joke against the vicar's understanding was not likely to be lost; nor did the natural association between tithes and "corn-bags" escape the observation of Hopkins, but was repeated with various other allusions of equal piquancy, to the no small annoyance of the reverend gentleman, and, as he declared, to the disparagement of his cloth. And it may be here observed, that the aforesaid vestals had long proclaimed open rebellion against their worthy priest; his manners, they asserted, were coarse and vulgar, his habits morose and unsociable, and his sermons mere chip and porridge: but the true cause of this inveteracy sprang from a deeper and more secret source; he had inveighed, in terms of bitter sarcasm, against the uncharitable practice of backbiting; his liberality was considered as a reflection upon their penuriousness; and his

*

tion from their own assumed consequence. Miss Kitty Ryland had, moreover, if Fame spoke the truth, a still more powerful motive for her hatred, Spretæ injuria forma, as Mr. Twaddleton would have doubtless expressed it, had he ever alluded to the affair, but to his credit be it recorded, that he was never heard to throw out the slightest insinuation upon the subject. Nor did he condescend to notice, nor, indeed, appear conscious of the meaning of the various innuendos, in which Mr. Seymour, with his accustomed pleasantry, would frequently indulge. On one of these occasions he placed a tall cruet of sugar before the vicar, observing, that it looked very sweet at the squat vinegar bottle that stood near it. It was admitted by those who were acquainted with the personages, thus represented, that the similitude, as far as it went, was perfect. The worthy vicar was, in truth, a tall casket, brimful of every thing that was sweet; and it must be acknowledged, that Miss Kitty, who was a little squat figure, might with equal propriety be said to contain no small quantity of acid, which her age had not

* "The injury of a rejected suit." En.i.51.