afterwards, Erskine was desired to attend at Carlton house, where the prince received him with great cordiality, and, after avowing his conviction that, ’in the instance that had separated them, his learned and eloquent friend had acted from the purest motives, he wished to give publicity to his present opinion on the subject, by appointing Mr. Erskine his chancellor.’  On one occasion, at the opening of a session of parliament by George the Third in person, his royal highness, who was then very much in debt, having gone down to the house of lords in a superb military uniform with diamond epaulettes, Major Doyle subsequently remarked to him, that his equipage had been much noticed by the mob.  ‘One fellow,’ added the major, ’prodigiously admired, what he termed ‘the fine things which the prince had upon his shoulders.’  ‘Mighty fine, indeed,’ replied another; ’but, mind me, they’ll soon be upon our shoulders, for all that.’  ‘Ah, you rogue!’ exclaimed the prince, laughing, ’that’s a hit of your own, I am convinced:—­but, come, take some wine.’

“He had some inclination for scientific pursuits, and highly respected those who were eminent for mechanical inventions.  He contributed largely towards the erection of a monument to the memory of Watt.  Of his medical information, slight as it undoubtedly was, he is said to have been particularly proud.  Carpue had demonstrated to him the general anatomy of the human body, in his younger days; and for a number of years, the ingenious Weiss submitted to his inspection all the new surgical instruments, in one of which the king suggested some valuable improvements.

“His talents were, undoubtedly, above the level of mediocrity:  they have, however, been greatly overrated, on the supposition that several powerfully written documents, put forth under his name, but composed by some of his more highly-gifted friends, were his own productions.  His style was, in fact, much beneath his station:  it was inelegant, destitute of force, and even occasionally incorrect.  He read his speeches well, but not excellently:  he possessed no eloquence, although, as a convivial orator, he is said to have been rather successful.

“At one time, while an associate of Sheridan, Erskine, Fox, &c., he affected, in conversation, to be brilliant, and so far succeeded, as to colloquial liveliness, that during their festive intercourse, according to the witty barrister’s own admission, ’he fairly kept up at saddle-skirts’ even with Curran.  Notwithstanding this compliment, his pretensions to wit appear to have been but slender; the best sayings attributed to him being a set of middling puns, of which the following is a favourable selection:—­When Langdale’s distillery was plundered, during the riots of 1780, he asked why the proprietor had not defended his property.  ‘He did not possess the means to do so,’ was the reply.  ‘Not the means of defence!’ exclaimed the prince, ’and he a brewer—­a man who has been all his life at cart and tierce!—­Sheridan