struck him as a sound and true one, or that he himself appeared to think so.  He used to plague Fuseli by asking him after the origin of the Teutonic dialects, and Dr. Parr, by wishing to know the meaning of the common copulative, Is.  Once at G——­’s, he defended Pitt from a charge of verbiage, and endeavoured to prove him superior to Fox.  Some one imitated Pitt’s manner, to show that it was monotonous, and he imitated him also, to show that it was not.  He maintained (what would he not maintain?) that young Betty’s acting was finer than John Kemble’s, and recited a passage from Douglas in the manner of each, to justify the preference he gave to the former.  The mentioning this will please the living; it cannot hurt the dead.  He argued on the same occasion and in the same breath, that Addison’s style was without modulation, and that it was physically impossible for any one to write well, who was habitually silent in company.  He sat like a king at his own table, and gave law to his guests—­and to the world!  No man knew better how to manage his immediate circle, to foil or bring them out.  A professed orator, beginning to address some observations to Mr. Tooke with a voluminous apology for his youth and inexperience, he said, “Speak up, young man!”—­and by taking him at his word, cut short the flower of orations.  Porson was the only person of whom he stood in some degree of awe, on account of his prodigious memory and knowledge of his favourite subject, Languages.  Sheridan, it has been remarked, said more good things, but had not an equal flow of pleasantry.  As an instance of Mr. Horne Tooke’s extreme coolness and command of nerve, it has been mentioned that once at a public dinner when he had got on the table to return thanks for his health being drank with a glass of wine in his hand, and when there was a great clamour and opposition for some time, after it had subsided, he pointed to the glass to shew that it was still full.  Mr. Holcroft (the author of the Road to Ruin) was one of the most violent and fiery-spirited of all that motley crew of persons, who attended the Sunday meetings at Wimbledon.  One day he was so enraged by some paradox or raillery of his host, that he indignantly rose from his chair, and said, “Mr. Tooke, you are a scoundrel!” His opponent without manifesting the least emotion, replied, “Mr. Holcroft, when is it that I am to dine with you? shall it be next Thursday?”—­“If you please, Mr. Tooke!” answered the angry philosopher, and sat down again.—­It was delightful to see him sometimes turn from these waspish or ludicrous altercations with over-weening antagonists to some old friend and veteran politician seated at his elbow; to hear him recal the time of Wilkes and Liberty, the conversation mellowing like the wine with the smack of age; assenting to all the old man said, bringing out his pleasant traits, and pampering him into childish self-importance, and sending him away thirty years younger than he came!