In his under-lip he had a prodigious large quid of
tobacco, and he leaned on a very thick oaken cudgel, which, I afterwards
learned, he cut in the woods of Hawthornden. His broad, bright, and
benevolent countenance at one glance, bespoke powerful intellect and
unbounded good-will, with a very visible sparkle of merry wit. The
discourse at first turned on politics (for the paper was in his hand,)
on which he at once openly avowed himself a warm whig, but clearly
without the slightest wish to provoke opposition. I at length succeeded
in turning the conversation into the fields of natural history, but
not till after he had scattered forth a profusion of the most humorous
anecdotes, that would baffle the most retentive memory to enumerate,
and defy the most witty to depict. I succeeded by mentioning an error
in one of his works; for which, when I had convinced him, he thanked
me, and took the path in conversation we wished. In many instances,
I must remark, though frequently succeeding to the broadest humour, his
countenance and conversation assumed the emitted flashes and features
of absolutely the highest sublimity; indeed, to an excitement of awful
amazement, particularly when speaking on the works of the Deity.
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