But the Doctor had
A NATURAL TURN FOR HUMOUR,
As is further illustrated by the celebrated Mr. Jones, of Welwyn, who calls him “a very ingenious person.” “At the public Commencement of 1713,” he says, “Dr. Greene (Master of Bene’t College, and afterwards Bishop of Ely) being then Vice-Chancellor, Mr. Long was pitched upon for the tripos performance: it was witty and humorous, and has passed through divers editions. Some who remembered the delivery of it, told me, that in addressing the Vice-Chancellor (whom the University wags usually styled Miss Greene,) the tripos-orator, being a native of Norfolk, and assuming the Norfolk dialect, instead of saying Domine Vice-Cancellarie, did very audibly pronounce the words thus,—Domina Vice-Cancellaria; which occasioned a general smile in that great auditory.” I could recollect several other
INGENIOUS REPARTEES
Of his, if there were occasion, adds Mr. Jones: but his friend, Mr. Bonfoy, of Ripon, told me this little incident:—that he, and Dr. Long walking together in Cambridge, in a dusky evening, and coming to a short post fixed in the pavement, which Mr. B., in the midst of chat and inattention, took to be a boy standing in his way, he said in a hurry, “Get out of my way, boy.” “That boy, sir,” said the Doctor, very calmly and slily, “is a post boy, who turns off his way for nobody.”
CELEBRATED ALL OVER GERMANY.
George the Second is said, like his father, to have had a strong predilection for his continental dominions, of which his ministers did not fail, occasionally, to take advantage. A residentiary of St. Paul’s cathedral happening to fall vacant, Lord Granville was anxious to secure it for the learned translator of Demosthenes, Dr. John Taylor, fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge. The King started some scruples at first, but his Lordship carried his point easily, on assuring his Majesty, which was the fact, that “the Doctor’s learning was celebrated all over Germany.”