“One of Matthews’s passions was ‘the Fancy;’ and he sparred uncommonly well.  But he always got beaten in rows, or combats with the bare fist.  In swimming, too, he swam well; but with effort and labour, and too high out of the water; so that Scrope Davies and myself, of whom he was therein somewhat emulous, always told him that he would be drowned if ever he came to a difficult pass in the water.  He was so; but surely Scrope and myself would have been most heartily glad that

            “’the Dean had lived,
    And our prediction proved a lie.’

“His head was uncommonly handsome, very like what Pope’s was in his youth.

“His voice, and laugh, and features, are strongly resembled by his brother Henry’s, if Henry be he of King’s College.  His passion for boxing was so great, that he actually wanted me to match him with Dogherty (whom I had backed and made the match for against Tom Belcher), and I saw them spar together at my own lodgings with the gloves on.  As he was bent upon it, I would have backed Dogherty to please him, but the match went off.  It was of course to have been a private fight, in a private room.

“On one occasion, being too late to go home and dress, he was equipped by a friend (Mr. Baillie, I believe,) in a magnificently fashionable and somewhat exaggerated shirt and neckcloth.  He proceeded to the Opera, and took his station in Fops’ Alley.  During the interval between the opera and the ballet, an acquaintance took his station by him and saluted him:  ‘Come round,’ said Matthews, ’come round.’—­’Why should I come round?’ said the other; ’you have only to turn your head—­I am close by you.’—­’That is exactly what I cannot do,’ said Matthews; ‘don’t you see the state I am in?’ pointing to his buckram shirt collar and inflexible cravat,—­and there he stood with his head always in the same perpendicular position during the whole spectacle.

“One evening, after dining together, as we were going to the Opera, I happened to have a spare Opera ticket (as subscriber to a box), and presented it to Matthews.  ‘Now, sir,’ said he to Hobhouse afterwards, ’this I call courteous in the Abbot—­another man would never have thought that I might do better with half a guinea than throw it to a door-keeper;—­but here is a man not only asks me to dinner, but gives me a ticket for the theatre.’  These were only his oddities, for no man was more liberal, or more honourable in all his doings and dealings, than Matthews.  He gave Hobhouse and me, before we set out for Constantinople, a most splendid entertainment, to which we did ample justice.  One of his fancies was dining at all sorts of out-of-the-way places.  Somebody popped upon him in I know not what coffee-house in the Strand—­and what do you think was the attraction?  Why, that he paid a shilling (I think) to dine with his hat on.  This he called his ‘hat house,’ and used to boast of the comfort of being covered at meal-times.