HE WAS NEVER A GOOD HORSEMAN.
“When I followed my father,” he says, “on a pony of my own, on my first journey to Cambridge, I fell off seven times. My father, on hearing a thump, would turn his head half aside, and say, ‘Take care of thy money, lad!’” This defect he never overcame: for when advanced in years, he acknowledged he was still so bad a horseman, “that if any man on horseback were to come near me when I am riding,” he would say, “I should certainly have a fall; company would take off my attention, and I have need of all I can command to manage my horse, the quietest creature that ever lived; one that, at Carlisle, used to be covered with children from the ears to the tail.”
HIS TWO OR THREE REASONS FOR EXCHANGING LIVINGS.
Meadly, his biographer, relates, that when asked why he had exchanged his living of Dalston for Stanwix? he frankly replied, “Sir, I have two or three reasons for taking Stanwix in exchange: first, it saved me double housekeeping, as Stanwix was within twenty minutes’ walk of my house in Carlisle; secondly, it was 50l. a-year more in value; and, thirdly, I began to find my stock of sermons coming over again too fast.” He was
A DISCIPLE OF IZAAK WALTON,
And carried his passion for angling so far, that when Romney took his portrait, he would be taken with a rod and line in his hand.
HIS WAY WHEN HE WANTED TO WRITE.
“When residing at Carlisle,” he says, “if I wanted to write any thing particularly well, I used to order a post-chaise, and go to a quiet comfortable inn, at Longtown, where I was safe from the trouble and bustle of a family, and there I remained until I had finished what I was about.” In this he was
A CONTRAST TO DR. GOLDSMITH,
Who, when he meditated his incomparable poem of the “Deserted Village,” went into the country, and took a lodging at a farm-house, where he remained several weeks in the enjoyment of rural ease and picturesque scenery, but could make no progress in his work. At last he came back to a lodging in Green-Arbour Court, opposite Newgate, and there, in a comparatively short time, in the heart of the metropolis, surrounded with all the antidotes to ease, he completed his task—quam nullum ultra verbum.