Page:Life of Edmond Malone.djvu/408

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388
MALONIANA.
388

“No,” said the Bishop, “you are entirely mistaken; he had as tender a heart as any man that ever lived.”

(Query—Is the Bishop a fair and impartial witness on this point?)


Warburton told Mr. Hamilton that Pope and others had undoubted proofs that Walsh at one time was reduced to such distress by prodigality as to become the hostler of an inn.


When Bishop Secker spoke in the House of Lords in favour of the Gin Bill, among other of the evils arising from its immoderate use he with great gravity mentioned that it occasioned promiscuous intercourse of the sexes. The House could not stand this, and burst into a fit of laughter.

Secker was very irritable in temper, and in order to guard himself against passion he made it a rule always to speak in a very slow and measured tone, which had the effect he wished.


The two portraits which Sir Joshua Reynolds has lately painted of Mr. William Windham, of Norfolk, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan are so like the originals, that they seem almost alive and ready to speak to you. Painting, in point of resemblance, can go no farther.


Mr. George Selwyn, who is now seventy-three or seventy-four years old, remembers Mrs. Oldfield, and was once carried by her in a coach to the play, which was Mary Queen of Scots. He says she had