He prefers Virgil to
Homer, and Horace to Pindar, and can, upon occasion, enter into a
dissertation on the precise meaning of a "Simplex munditiis." He also
delights in a pun, and most especially in a Latin one; and when applied to
for payment of _paving-rate_, never fails to reply "_Paveant_ illi, non
_paveam_ ego!" which, though peradventure repeated for the twentieth time,
still serves to sweeten the adieu between his purse and its contents. He
is also an amateur in etymologies and derivatives, and is sorry that the
learned Selden's solution of the origin of the term "gentleman" seems to
include in it something not altogether complimentary to religion. This is
his only objection to it. He speaks French; and his accent is, he flatters
himself, an approximation to the veritable Parisian. Modern novels he does
not read, but has read "Waverley" and "Pelham."
His library is not large, but select; and as he does not sit in it
excepting very occasionally, the fire grate is a movable one, and can be
turned at will from parlour to library and _vice versa_,--a whim of his
old acquaintance Dr. Trifle of Oxford. In it are his library table and
stuffed chair; a bust of Pitt and another of Cicero; a patent inkstand and
silver pen; an atlas, and maps upon rollers; a crimson screen, an improved
"Secretaire;" a barometer and a thermometer.
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