Some to shooting, some to fishing,
Some to pishing and disputing,
Or to computing by wishing.
And in the evening when they met
(To think on’t always does me good,)
There never met a jollier sett,
Either before, or since the Flood.”
Nor was Hall-Stevenson a mere voluptuary. Even though the critic may have exaggerated who wrote of him: “He could engage in the grave discussions of criticism and literature with superior power; he was qualified to enliven general society with the smile of Horace, the laughter of Cervantes; or he could sit on Fontaine’s easy chair, and unbosom his humour to his chosen friends”; yet there is no doubt that he was a good classical scholar, and, for an Englishman, exceptionally well read in the belles lettres of Europe, in a day when such knowledge was rare.
“Anthony, Lord of Crazy Castle,
Neither a fisher, nor a shooter,