column, the scarecrow of his inferiors, the brow-beater of equals and superiors, who made a solitude of children wherever he came, for they fled his insufferable presence, as they would have shunned an Elisha bear.  His growl was as thunder in their ears, whether he spake to them in mirth or in rebuke, his invitatory notes being, indeed, of all, the most repulsive and horrid.  Clouds of snuff, aggravating the natural terrors of his speech, broke from each majestic nostril, darkening the air.  He took it, not by pinches, but a palmful at once, diving for it under the mighty flaps of his old-fashioned waistcoat pocket; his waistcoat red and angry, his coat dark rappee, tinctured by dye original, and by adjuncts, with buttons of obsolete gold.  And so he paced the terrace.

By his side a milder form was sometimes to be seen; the pensive gentility of Samuel Salt.  They were coevals, and had nothing but that and their benchership in common.  In politics Salt was a whig, and Coventry a staunch tory.  Many a sarcastic growl did the latter cast out—­for Coventry had a rough spinous humour—­at the political confederates of his associate, which rebounded from the gentle bosom of the latter like cannon-balls from wool.  You could not ruffle Samuel Salt.

S. had the reputation of being a very clever man, and of excellent discernment in the chamber practice of the law.  I suspect his knowledge did not amount to much.  When a case of difficult disposition of money, testamentary or otherwise, came before him, he ordinarily handed it over with a few instructions to his man Lovel, who was a quick little fellow, and would despatch it out of hand by the light of natural understanding, of which he had an uncommon share.  It was incredible what repute for talents S. enjoyed by the mere trick of gravity.  He was a shy man; a child might pose him in a minute—­indolent and procrastinating to the last degree.  Yet men would give him credit for vast application in spite of himself.  He was not to be trusted with himself with impunity.  He never dressed for a dinner party but he forgot his sword—­they wore swords then—­or some other necessary part of his equipage.  Lovel had his eye upon him on all these occasions, and ordinarily gave him his cue.  If there was anything which he could speak unseasonably, he was sure to do it.—­He was to dine at a relative’s of the unfortunate Miss Blandy on the day of her execution;—­and L. who had a wary foresight of his probable hallucinations, before he set out, schooled him with great anxiety not in any possible manner to allude to her story that day.  S. promised faithfully to observe the injunction.  He had not been seated in the parlour, where the company was expecting the dinner summons, four minutes, when, a pause in the conversation ensuing, he got up, looked out of window, and pulling down his ruffles—­an ordinary motion with him—­observed, “it was a gloomy day,” and added, “Miss Blandy must be hanged by this time, I suppose.”