was a candidate for Westminster) had objected to Mr. Fox, that “he was always against the minister, whether right or wrong,” and Mr. Fox, in his reply, had overlooked this slip of the tongue, Mr. Tooke immediately seized on it, and said, “he thought it at least an equal objection to Sir Allan, that he was always with the minister, whether right or wrong.”  This retort had all the effect, and produced the same surprise as the most brilliant display of wit or fancy:  yet it was only the detecting a flaw in an argument, like a flaw in an indictment, by a kind of legal pertinacity, or rather by a rigid and constant habit of attending to the exact import of every word and clause in a sentence.  Mr. Tooke had the mind of a lawyer; but it was applied to a vast variety of topics and general trains of speculation.

Mr. Horne Tooke was in private company, and among his friends, the finished gentleman of the last age.  His manners were as fascinating as his conversation was spirited and delightful.  He put one in mind of the burden of the song of “The King’s Old Courtier, and an Old Courtier of the King’s.”  He was, however, of the opposite party.  It was curious to hear our modern sciolist advancing opinions of the most radical kind without any mixture of radical heat or violence, in a tone of fashionable nonchalance, with elegance of gesture and attitude, and with the most perfect good-humour.  In the spirit of opposition, or in the pride of logical superiority, he too often shocked the prejudices or wounded the self-love of those about him, while he himself displayed the same unmoved indifference or equanimity.  He said the most provoking things with a laughing gaiety, and a polite attention, that there was no withstanding.  He threw others off their guard by thwarting their favourite theories, and then availed himself of the temperance of his own pulse to chafe them into madness.  He had not one particle of deference for the opinion of others, nor of sympathy with their feelings; nor had he any obstinate convictions of his own to defend—­

  “Lord of himself, uncumbered with a creed!”

He took up any topic by chance, and played with it at will, like a juggler with his cups and balls.  He generally ranged himself on the losing side; and had rather an ill-natured delight in contradiction, and in perplexing the understandings of others, without leaving them any clue to guide them out of the labyrinth into which he had led them.  He understood, in its perfection, the great art of throwing the onus probandi on his adversary; and so could maintain almost any opinion, however absurd or fantastical, with fearless impunity.  I have heard a sensible and well-informed man say, that he never was in company with Mr. Tooke without being delighted and surprised, or without feeling the conversation of every other person to be flat in the comparison; but that he did not recollect having ever heard him make a remark that